Quest of the Dragoons Book One: End of an Era
by Illyria's Acolyte
Summary: Complete!This is part of the BORP chronicles. There is an explaination of this in my bio. This is where some present time teenagers are entrusted with Dragoon spirits to save the world from someone who is supposed to be dead.
1. Chapter 1:Void Dragoon

If anyone ever asks you why you did something, what do you tell them? The reason you did it, right? What if there wasn't a  
  
reason, it just seemed as if "fate" intervened? What then? That  
  
was the question asked of eight very courageous teenagers who  
  
harnessed an extraordinary power and saved two worlds from total  
  
destruction, and they answered it marvelously. But, first things first, let's start at the beginning.  
  
The protagonist of this story is a boy named Jake. He is a  
  
very mysterious character, just ask anyone who knows him. He  
  
attends his Upstate New York high school as an almost straight-A  
  
student. His life was mostly boring until one seemingly normal  
  
Thursday, in his sophomore year, a beautiful green-eyed girl  
  
transferred there. He walked over to introduce himself.  
  
"Hey, are you the new kid?" He started to sweat a little.  
  
"Yeah, and you must be Jake." She offered her hand, and  
  
Jake followed suit and shook it.  
  
"I see my reputation precedes me." The girl laughed. "It's not  
  
that bad, I just heard you were the shoulder that everyone cries  
  
on."  
  
"Yeah, it's hard not to be. I'm just there for everybody, and  
  
they know it. Everyone thinks I have good advice, and they'd be  
  
right in thinking so. I guess they feel that they can trust me."  
  
The girl looked at him for a while, as if in a trance, but then  
  
she snapped out of it. "My name is Adrianne."  
  
"You want to meet some of my friends?" Jake hoped that he  
  
could break the weird tension that was forming between them.  
  
"Sure, can you point them out?"  
  
"Jake, I have a question!" One of Jake's good friends ran  
  
over to him. Her name was Amber Milton, and she was a twin to  
  
her sister Kelly. She flashed her brilliant blue eyes at him as she  
  
held up two pieces of paper, most likely ripped from a Sears  
  
catalog.  
  
"Which of these dresses is cuter, the red, or the green?" Jake  
  
looked at them and weighed the choices. "Myself, I'm partial to the  
  
green. What about you Adrianne?"  
  
"I like the green too." Amber's eyes rose from the dresses to  
  
notice Adrianne for the first time. "Oh, you must be the new  
  
student, Adrianne." Adrianne shook her hand. "I've heard an awful  
  
lot about you and your school."  
  
"And I've heard an awful lot about you Amber. You're the  
  
only person who has gotten perfect grades and perfect attendance  
  
for eleven consecutive years. You're a legend."  
  
Amber blushed. "Nah, I'm just a smart girl who works really hard and gets really lucky sometimes. I'm really not that special."  
  
Adrianne grinned. "And modest too. I think I'm gonna like it  
  
here." Jake smiled. "I hope so." Adrianne started to walk away.  
  
"Say, Adrianne," Jake asked as she turned to look at him.  
  
"You wouldn't happen to have, I don't know, a date for the prom  
  
already would you?"  
  
"There's a prom coming up?" Jake almost kicked himself for  
  
not remembering how new she was. "Yeah. This Saturday."  
  
Adrianne gave him a puppy face. "I wouldn't want to go alone now, would I? I suppose I could go with you, if it's alright."  
  
Jake felt a rush of relief. "Perfectly. I'll pick you up at 7:30?"  
  
Adrianne was confused. "You can drive already?"  
  
"No, no, one of my friends who can drive is picking us all up  
  
at my house. Do you need directions?"  
  
Adrianne shook her head. "I'll just ride the bus home to your  
  
house tomorrow. See you then!" Amber smiled evilly at him.  
  
"Someone's got a little crush," she sang in a perfect voice.  
  
Jake wondered why anyone so perfect would waste her time hanging out with him. "Maybe a little one."  
  
"Well, I've got to go home, I don't have lacrosse this  
  
afternoon for once. See ya!" She waved, and Jake waved back.  
  
"Bye!" She went to her last period class, and Jake figured  
  
he'd better do the same.  
  
Unfortunately for him, today was double mod biology. That  
  
was his least favorite class. All the theorems and equations, it was  
  
like a second math class, only more boring and useless than the  
  
first. And he had the most mind-numbing teacher on the face of the  
  
planet: Miss Luten. She droned on and on for what seemed like  
  
hours about Charles Darwin and those whatever-they-are things he  
  
discovered. It was like the class that excitement forgot. Jake  
  
couldn't wait until he was out of this god-forsaken subject and  
  
back at home.  
  
********************************************  
  
Every day after school, Jake had to walk through a small  
  
forest that bordered his house. What happened that day changed  
  
his life forever.  
  
He walked through the marshlands in the small forest, as he  
  
usually did, when he saw a glint in the grass. He stooped down to  
  
see what it was, and saw a small stone. It was an ugly pale green,  
  
save the red eye-like mark near the center of it. He picked it up  
  
between his thumb and fore-finger and examined the quiet beauty of the mysterious bauble.  
  
Suddenly, it began to glow with a blinding light so bright,  
  
that Jake had to shield his eyes from it. When he opened them, he  
  
felt different. More powerful, like a strange energy was coursing  
  
throughout his veins. And a voice inside his head had abruptly  
  
appeared and started to speak.  
  
'You have been chosen by the Void Dragoon to lead your  
  
world to salvation from the impending evil it will face sooner than  
  
you know. Do not abuse this power, as it will lead to further  
  
suffering and death for you and your fellow warriors. Do you  
  
accept the fate of the world?' Then the voice all but disappeared.  
  
Jake thought about this a while, and determined that the voice  
  
was a hallucination, and decided to go home and act like nothing  
  
happened. But the voice was still there, subtly nagging at his brain  
  
to agree to take the fate of the planet. Jake finally thought that it  
  
might be a good idea to give in to this voice, and, for no apparent  
  
reason, he accepted the fate dealt to him. He closed his eyes, and  
  
let the power take him over. When he opened them, he could not  
  
believe what he saw.  
  
Armour, and lots of it, covered his body. It was a mix of pale  
  
green in some spots and beige in others. His left eye was covered  
  
by a red eye patch with a green sphere in the middle. On his right  
  
arm was mounted a large cannon, which he supposed he should  
  
know how to work. This amazed him.  
  
The voice was back in his head, and it said to him, 'You have  
  
chosen the fate that is a Dragoon fate. You must not tell another  
  
living soul about this. Open the book on your desk. It will tell you  
  
how to work your new magic that comes with the Void Dragoon  
  
Spirit.'  
  
'Wow, magic too?' Jake thought as he searched his desk for  
  
the book. He found it, and enclosed on the cover of the thick,  
  
ancient tome was the hilt of a sword. Judging by the size of the  
  
hilt, it must have been a rather large sword. He clasped his hands  
  
around it, and the sword revealed itself. It must have been at least a  
  
four-foot sword, and the blade was made of a material not familiar  
  
to Jake, maybe because he never paid attention in science class. He  
  
sighed a breath of amazement, and the entire entourage vanished  
  
completely in a bright blaze of luminosity. He opened the book and  
  
read it all through the night.  
  
*******************************************  
  
Jake's classes went by more quickly than he thought they  
  
would, mostly because Adrianne was in nearly all of them. There  
  
was a lot about her that he found rather attractive. Her green eyes,  
  
her light brown hair that was best when she wore it in a ponytail,  
  
her beautiful singing voice, the list went on for miles. During  
  
biology, the one class that Adrianne was not in with him, business  
  
ran slower than usual, as he was waiting for the bus to show  
  
Adrianne the way to his house. He wondered what his mother  
  
would think when she came home and found Adrianne there. Well,  
  
he imagined she'd be pretty mad, and-  
  
"Are we paying attention Jake? No? Why does that not  
  
surprise me." Miss Luten was especially cross today. Most of her  
  
students had failed her test. Jake, Amber, and Adrianne were the  
  
only ones that passed. Adrianne had Miss Luten, but at a different  
  
time than Jake. Luckily for everyone in her class, Miss Luten was  
  
done after the single period ended, and Jake looked for Adrianne's  
  
last period class. She told him it was Spanish, which was  
  
fortunately right next to his biology room .  
  
"Hey Ben, have you seen Adrianne anywhere?"  
  
Another one of Jake's friends, Ben was a blonde boy who  
  
was just the slightest bit taller than everyone else. He was a very  
  
sarcastic person, and always had a snide remark for whatever was  
  
thrown at him.  
  
"Yeah, she's getting some gossip from Becca."  
  
Becca was a good friend of Ben's, though Jake did not know  
  
her very well. She had blonde hair, but Jake suspected that it was  
  
not her natural color. She always seemed to be smitten with Ben,  
  
although the nothing ever happened between the two of them. As  
  
Becca walked out of the classroom with Adrianne, she turned her  
  
brown eyes towards Jake's of the same color.  
  
"Your lady awaits," she teased. Adrianne hit her lightly on  
  
the shoulder. "Stop it, you're evil." Both girls laughed. Adrianne's  
  
laugh sounded like the quiet chime of a church bell. Adrianne  
  
started to speak again.  
  
"So who else is going in this carpool? The one that goes to  
  
the prom that is."  
  
Jake thought a while and started counting off guests on his  
  
fingers. "Well there's me, you, Ben and Becca, Alex, Jimbo, Greg  
  
and Amber. I think that's it."  
  
"I don't know most of those people. It'll be fun to meet them.  
  
Which one is driving?"  
  
"Jimbo," Ben interrupted. "Isn't that right, Bec-" He turned  
  
to find his friend had already gone. "She must have gotten on the  
  
bus already. We should too." Ben ran toward the bus circle and  
  
Jake and Adrianne followed close behind.  
  
********************************************  
  
Jake and Adrianne got on the Jake's bus and ended up sitting  
  
next to Ben, who rode the same bus as Jake did. They talked for  
  
the whole 15 minutes that it took the bus to get from the school to  
  
Jake's house about Adrianne and her life before they knew her.  
  
Apparently, she had had only one boyfriend before she came here.  
  
His name was Evan. He is not a focus in this story, so there will be  
  
not much more talk of him now. Eventually, the bus pulled up at Jake's stop.  
  
"This is it Adrianne. Good-bye Ben. Talk to you later?" Ben  
  
nodded. "Sure. Bye." Jake and Adrianne got off the bus and started  
  
to walk to Jake's house.  
  
"Hey Adrianne, can I ask you a question?"  
  
"Sure, but you have to tell me what it is first. Contrary to  
  
popular belief, Jake, I'm not a mind reader." Jake laughed.  
  
"Um, you've only known me for a couple of days now, but  
  
I'm sure you already have an impression of me in your mind. What  
  
do you think of me as of right now?"  
  
Evidently, this question caught Adrianne off guard. "Um,  
  
well, I don't know. I think you're funny, unintentionally of course,  
  
and I think you're cute for a guy with such big brains. What else?  
  
You're smart, and, I'm sure you get this all the time, but I think you  
  
could get anyone you wanted to have."  
  
Now it was Jake's turn to be caught off guard. "Wow, I didn't  
  
know anyone felt that way about me. You aren't like anyone else I  
  
know Adrianne."  
  
Adrianne smiled. "Now, I know you'll hate me for this, but  
  
they say turnabout is fair play. So, what do you think of me?"  
  
Jake answered the question as if he had prepared it the night  
  
before, like a speech. "I think you are stunning, and you're so cute  
  
when your hair is in a ponytail. You're ten times as smart as I am,  
  
and so much funnier, intentionally and unintentionally. I know you  
  
could have anyone you want, and they would stay faithful to you  
  
because of all your likable qualities, despite the fact that you're a  
  
little ditzy."  
  
Adrianne was utterly taken aback. She hadn't expected this  
  
kind of answer from him. "Wow, I had no idea you felt like that.  
  
You've only known me for a little while. How can you be so sure?"  
  
"Let's just call it intuition."  
  
********************************************  
  
They had been talking for such a long time that before they  
  
knew it, they were at Jake's house. He walked through his poor  
  
lawn, which hadn't been mowed in weeks, and opened his door  
  
with the temperamental key. Adrianne followed him in. His faithful watch dog Dakota ran to the door, barking like all hell broke loose. Jake quickly subdued him with a few gentle words, and he led Adrianne on a tour of his house.  
  
"This is the bathroom, the kitchen, my mom's room, my  
  
brother's room, my sister's room, and my own room. I'm sorry it's  
  
so messy, I didn't really have time to clean it up properly."  
  
"It's fine. It's cleaner than my room." She walked around and  
  
looked at a picture of Jake and another girl. She was blonde, and  
  
she looked happy to be with him. "Who's this?"  
  
Jake picked up the photograph and smiled fondly, as if  
  
recalling some bygone friend who moved away long time ago.  
  
"This is Kylie. She was a good friend of mine, until she left for  
  
Paris. She lives there now."  
  
"Do you miss her?"  
  
"Not much. Less than I thought I would. I guess she and I  
  
weren't as close as I thought."  
  
Adrianne sat on his bed. "Did you like her?"  
  
"Of course I liked her. Oh, you don't mean as a friend. Sure,  
  
maybe a little. We were good friends until we started to date each  
  
other. Then, when we broke up, the two of us drifted apart. I don't  
  
know where she is, what she's doing, or anything else about her as  
  
of about a year ago."  
  
"That's so sad. It's almost like a love story that you read in  
  
books or see in movies." Adrianne almost had tears in her eyes.  
  
Jake laughed.  
  
"Yeah, but after that, the protagonist usually gets a new  
  
girlfriend, and I don't have one yet. But I'm keeping my fingers  
  
crossed." He crossed his fingers. Adrianne was slightly hurt in a  
  
small portion of her heart.  
  
"So do you want to do something? I might be here for quite a while, since prom is-" Adrianne thought for a moment. "Prom is tomorrow. Um, Jake, can I stay overnight? Like on the couch or  
  
something?"  
  
This was not quite what Jake was expecting. "Um, sure, if you can hide from my mom." Then he remembered that his mom had left him a note that said she'd be in Baltimore for the weekend, and she was leaving Friday morning. "You know what, my mom's not even going to be home, and my brother and sister went with her."  
  
Adrianne looked a mixture of fright and relief. "Great. We  
  
can find something to do for about a couple hours. That shouldn't  
  
be too hard." So they went online and chatted with various friends  
  
of theirs, mostly Ben and Becca. By 9:00, everyone had gone to  
  
bed, so Jake and Adrianne started to talk about their lives previous  
  
to meeting each other.  
  
Adrianne had been quite busy. She was apparently a very  
  
good actress, and an amazing singer. She didn't have a lot of  
  
friends at her old school, but they were good ones, and she is still  
  
in touch with them. Jake's life paled in comparison with hers. The  
  
only thing worthwhile he had accomplished was......... well,  
  
nothing.  
  
"I guess you win," Jake said, throwing his hands jokingly in  
  
the air. "You have a much more exciting life than me." He looked  
  
at her and smiled. Then he looked at the clock and gasped. "We've  
  
been sitting here and talking for three hours. It's midnight. Do you  
  
want a blanket or something?" Adrianne nodded. "Alright, let me  
  
see what I can find." He rummaged through the old closet at the  
  
foot of his stairs and pulled out the ugliest green blanket that ever  
  
was made.  
  
"Sorry about the unattractiveness of this blanket. My mom  
  
apparently has a passion for collecting broken or hideous things."  
  
She laughed. "Or broken and hideous."  
  
She laughed again and took the blanket. Soon after, she was  
  
asleep. Jake smiled and went to bed himself.  
  
********************************************  
  
A meadow. Soft and green. Everything was alright there. He  
  
felt so safe and comforted in this place that he did not want to  
  
leave. And Adrianne was there. It was just the two of them. She ran towards him and into his arms. She pressed her face against his shoulder, and he encircled his arms around her waist. She did the same. Her head rose up, and for a moment, he saw those beautiful  
  
green eyes. Then they closed as their faces drew closer and closer  
  
together. And he almost felt something between them in what  
  
consciousness he had left.  
  
Now there was fire. Everywhere. And lots of it. Everything  
  
was ablaze in a violent inferno. Adrianne. Where was Adrianne?  
  
Come to think of it, where was he? And what was he doing here?  
  
He started to walk anywhere there wasn't fire. The flames licked  
  
high up the walls, and there appeared to be no one else there. He  
  
called out Adrianne's name, but it just reverberated throughout the  
  
echoing walls of what ever building he was entrapped in.  
  
Suddenly, he heard a response. A scream, shrill and  
  
frightened. He ran towards it as fast as his legs could carry him.  
  
When he arrived, he saw the terrible sight of a burning human, and  
  
smelled the rotten stench of burnt flesh. Adrianne's screams echoed  
  
in the background. He ran forward and tried to wrench the poor  
  
creature who he assumed to be Adrianne from its fiery prison, but  
  
instead it crumbled in his hands and he was in its place. He felt a  
  
searing pain race through his nerves, and the fire made him cry out  
  
in his sleep. He awoke in a cold sweat.  
  
********************************************  
  
At the same moment, Adrianne was having a similar dream.  
  
She dreamt that she was in a meadow all alone, calling out for  
  
someone to save her from......... well, she didn't quite know what  
  
she needed to be saved from. But she felt that it was very evil, and  
  
that only she could stop it. In order to do that, however, she needed  
  
to move, which she could not do for some reason. Jake was there  
  
too. He reached out his hand for hers, but it wasn't far enough. She  
  
fell into a large pit.  
  
Bells. Lots of bells. Loud noises everywhere. And she was  
  
wearing lots of white. 'It must be a wedding, but who's?' Adrianne  
  
was taken down the aisle by none other than Ben. Why? She had  
  
no idea. But she knew the person waiting at the alter was not Jake.  
  
It was Evan. Only she knew the truth about Evan's strange  
  
disappearance. There was nothing more unsettling than to see  
  
someone who is supposed to be dead. As she neared the end of the  
  
aisle, she was suddenly one of the guests, and it was no longer her  
  
in the white dress. At least, she thought it wasn't her. The figure  
  
turned around and Adrianne saw the figure's face. It was her own!  
  
But it suddenly was distorted, and turned into a grotesque imitation  
  
of her. Ben did the same thing.  
  
"Mashter wantsh with yoush, yesh yesh. Mashter would  
  
likesh to talksh with you, Adriannesh. Yesh, yesh, talksh," said the  
  
raspy-voiced creature who was once Ben. "Help me Adrianne," the  
  
girl in the wedding dress cried. Evan laughed, and sucked  
  
something white from her back and red from his. A look of pain  
  
crossed both their faces, and they slumped to the floor, dead. He  
  
absorbed the colored spheres, and looked Adrianne in the eye. She  
  
felt as if someone had set fire to her soul. She was burning in that  
  
dress. She could see her own flesh ablaze with a bright orange  
  
firestorm. She screamed loudly and bolted upright in her bed.  
  
'Wait, I'm not at home,' she thought. "Adrianne!" A voice  
  
echoed through her house. It was Evan's. She felt so heavy, and she  
  
couldn't move. Evan came closer and closer. She screamed again.  
  
********************************************  
  
When she awoke, Jake was holding her and trying to calm  
  
her and wake her up. She rose her eyes to meet his, and they both  
  
broke into tears and just sat there holding each other in a death  
  
grip, neither wanting the other to let go.  
  
"Oh I had the most horrible dream. You tried to save me, but  
  
I got married to Evan anyway. But it wasn't me, except it was. And  
  
Ben, something happened to Ben. He was evil-looking, and Evan  
  
stole something from both of us. They were little pebbles, and  
  
mine was white and his was red. And we both died, oh it was so  
  
horrible!" She cried some more. "I know you must think that I'm  
  
weak now, so just go ahead and leave me like all my other friends did."  
  
"Wait, you said on the bus that you were still in contact with  
  
your friends," Jake said, feeling very confused.  
  
"I keep in touch with them, but they don't keep in touch with  
  
me. And it's all because they think I did something to my last  
  
boyfriend." She had dried her eyes now for the most part, but they  
  
were still quite red. Jake brought her chin up with his hand. "What  
  
happened?" Adrianne shook her head. "I don't want to talk about  
  
it." Jake seemed slightly hurt, but let it go and continued holding  
  
her and letting her cry. After about an hour, they realized it was six  
  
in the morning already, and it was pretty much pointless to go back  
  
to sleep, so Jake made the two of them coffee.  
  
"I......... I think I'm ready to talk now. But you've gotta  
  
promise not to tell anyone."  
  
Jake nodded. "Alright, I promise."  
  
Adrianne sighed, and began her story.  
  
********************************************  
  
"I had only known him for a little while, and I didn't see  
  
much of him, but I really liked him. So, one day I said to him,  
  
'Evan, you know I like you, right?' and he said 'Yeah, do ya wanna  
  
go somewhere after school?' I was flattered, and naturally I  
  
accepted. We went to see the Golden Gate Bridge, and I went over  
  
to the edge and looked over it. I guess I looked too far, because the  
  
next thing I remember was falling. And Evan came after me.  
  
'He dove in just as I hit the water. We ended up somewhere in  
  
a secluded spot a couple miles downstream. He said to me 'This is  
  
how I wanted to die, so please, just tell the people who find you  
  
that I'm dead. I can't be in touch, but if you see me again, you'll  
  
know.' And with that, he was gone. Out of my life forever. I think I  
  
cried for at least an hour and a half straight that night. The next day  
  
at school, everyone thought I fell in on purpose to get him killed. I  
  
don't have any idea why they would think that, but they did. And I  
  
became such an outcast at school that, after three years, my parents  
  
thought we should move to another state to get me away from the  
  
pain. So when I go to school here, I put on a mask of the happy,  
  
ditzy Adrianne that everyone loves, and no one has a clue."  
  
********************************************  
  
Jake stared at her for a moment, and put his arms back around  
  
her as she started to cry for a third time.  
  
"Now you must think I'm the most worthless piece of scum  
  
that ever walked this earth," Adrianne sobbed into his chest.  
  
"No, you're probably the strongest person I know. You dealt  
  
with that secret tragedy alone for years, and that takes real courage.  
  
You're far from weak. Crying doesn't make you weak. It just  
  
makes you stronger. It's a common misconception. Just like love.  
  
People think that love makes you weak, when in reality it only  
  
strengthens you, especially when you lose someone you love."  
  
Adrianne gradually stopped crying and looked at Jake's face.  
  
She saw no hint of malice, sarcasm, or contempt, just a caring and  
  
helpful face. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. He took a  
  
tissue and dried her emerald eyes. His fingers ran along her cheeks,  
  
which were stained red from crying. She reached down for his  
  
hand and put it in hers. Adrianne smiled, and Jake smiled back. He  
  
put his arms around her again and they stood like that for a few  
  
minutes.  
  
"You know what, I'm really tired. Let's try and go back to  
  
sleep." Adrianne lifted her head off his chest and started towards  
  
the couch, stretching. Before she could get very much further, Jake  
  
called out her name. "Adrianne?" She turned to face him. "What is  
  
it?" Jake sighed. "I've got a secret of my own. There is no Kylie. I  
  
made her up. The girl in the picture is some person I got off a  
  
website for picture cropping. I have never had a girlfriend. I'm  
  
sorry I lied to you." Adrianne smiled understandingly. "It's ok. I  
  
lied to you twice, and you're not leaving me."  
  
"Why would I leave? It is my house after all," Jake said.  
  
Adrianne laughed and went back into the living room and fell  
  
asleep on the couch within seconds. Jake thought that looked like a  
  
good idea, and went into his room and fell asleep quickly.  
  
********************************************  
  
"Mashter, Mashter, she's ashleep now Mashter. May I kill  
  
hersh now Mashter?" an impish creature crooned in it's whiny,  
  
raspy voice. It twitched it's leathery scarlet wings as it waited for a  
  
reply.  
  
"I told you ,Mullog, you are not to kill the girl. I want her  
  
alive." A strange cloaked figure raised his head as he said these  
  
words.  
  
"But Mashter-" The creature vanished before it could say  
  
anymore. "Anyone else who wants to kill Adrianne?" All of the  
  
imps shook their heads. "I will have Adrianne again, and  
  
everything will be as it was three years ago."  
  
********************************************  
  
A/N: YAY! This is my biggest chapter ever! 4000 something  
  
words, not including the A/N. Gee, I know right now it seems like  
  
a sappy love story, but it will not only get more exciting, it will get  
  
sappier. Fun fun. Well, for me at least. For all you LoD fans, you  
  
know that there is more than one Dragoon Spirit. Who gets the  
  
other seven? And is there a ninth? Find out in later editions of  
  
Quest of the Dragoons. 


	2. Chapter 2: The Plan is Set in Motion

After talking with Jake and Adrianne, Ben got in bed and  
  
stared at his ceiling. He thought about a few things: regents, the  
  
prom, but mostly about Becca. Her blonde hair, her brown eyes,  
  
her beautiful form, and of her magnificent personality. What  
  
he loved most about her was her happy-go-lucky personality. She  
  
was like a breath of fresh air to him, the only thing that kept him  
  
from being completely emotionally empty. He smiled and realized  
  
he really did love her. Unfortunately for him, she was in love with  
  
someone else. She wouldn't tell him who, but he assumed it was  
  
Jimbo.  
  
Man, Jimbo had ruined all his hard work and sacrifice to get  
  
Becca. First, there was last year's prom. Jimbo and Becca snuck  
  
into the prom from the bathroom window, and they ended up being  
  
part of the prom court somehow. Then, it was the whole thing with  
  
the Operation Pineapple, which was a plot of Jimbo's to get back at  
  
Ben for making him do something which he won't even dare think  
  
about. It involved himself, Becca, and a giant piece of pineapple.  
  
Not a fun experience.  
  
Suddenly, the phone rang. Ben grumbled because he had just  
  
started to fall asleep. 'Who could be calling at 11 at night?' he  
  
thought as he grudgingly got up and answered the phone. "Hello?"  
  
he said tiredly. "Ben? It's me, Becca." He heard her sweet voice  
  
through the receiver on the phone. His sleepiness instantly  
  
dissolved. "Why did you call so late at night?"  
  
"Jimbo called and asked if you still wanted to go to the prom  
  
with us in our carpool. He said that you might, but I was supposed  
  
to ask you first. Well?" she said expectantly as Ben breathed a sigh  
  
of annoyance on the other end. "No, I'll find a different way to get  
  
there. Tell Jimbo I'm out," he said as he hung up the phone with a  
  
disgusted look on his face. He went back up to his room and went  
  
online, hoping that there was someone he could vent to. There  
  
wasn't. So he went on one of the forums he happened to be a  
  
member of and complained to the people who were online then.  
  
They all told him to shut up.  
  
There was one person, however, that told him to get in a  
  
private chat-room with him. Ben agreed and accepted the invitation  
  
that appeared on his screen from evildude434. Evildude434 told  
  
him that the way to win her heart was to impress her with some  
  
kind of power she didn't know he had, like strength or brains. Ben  
  
replied by saying that she already knows everything about him.  
  
Evildude434 put up a devil face and typed "Not everything." And  
  
with that, the mysterious character logged off. Ben frowned  
  
because he thought he knew what evildude434 was talking about.  
  
********************************************  
  
"Perfect. He fell right into my trap." The cloaked figure  
  
signed off-line and smiled evilly. "The boy will soon bend to my  
  
will. Mippa! Mullog!" Two imp-like creatures hopped into his  
  
throne room. "Yesh Mashter?" The concealed figure turned toward  
  
them. "I want you to get this young boy to show his powers at the  
  
prom tonight. And you may use this." He handed them each a card  
  
with an image printed on it. One was a muscular figure with a  
  
completely blank face. The other was a beautiful woman . "I will  
  
make Adrianne mine, and she will feel my pain!"  
  
********************************************  
  
Becca dreamed that she was walking on an ocean full of  
  
flowers. It was daytime in her dream. She was barefoot wearing her  
  
periwinkle prom dress. She looked up at the sky, and realized that  
  
she was now underwater. She swam to the best of her ability, but  
  
something was holding her in place. She blacked out.  
  
The next thing she knew, she was standing on a big boat.  
  
Amber, Ben, Jimbo, and Adrianne were there too. The seas  
  
were rough, and Adrianne almost got tossed overboard. Becca held  
  
onto the railing, but it disappeared. She almost fell over the side of  
  
the ship, but a shining figure in red armor caught her and carried  
  
her safely to the boat's destination. How she knew the destination  
  
of the vessel, she had no idea. Her savior looked at her, and she  
  
almost saw his face when...  
  
********************************************  
  
Riiiiiiiiiiiing! Becca's alarm clock went off. "I forgot to turn  
  
it off," she mumbled as she went to put the thing out of it's misery.  
  
She hit it on the surface fairly hard. She muttered something about  
  
suing the company that made it as she tried to go to sleep again.  
  
She did fall asleep, but she had her standard Jimbo-will-you-  
  
marry-me dream. No more of the boat and the figure in red armor.  
  
She hoped that it would turn out to be Jim, but somehow she knew  
  
it wouldn't.  
  
********************************************  
  
Jake woke up again at about noon. He thought back to this  
  
morning when he had had Adrianne in his arms for a brief moment.  
  
She was still on the couch, asleep. She really was pretty. Maybe he  
  
could ask her to dance with him at the prom.  
  
Then a thought crossed his mind: What about that strange  
  
rock he found two days ago? He felt it in his pocket of the pants  
  
from yesterday that he had forgotten to take off. He quickly got  
  
dressed in new clothes. He had tan khakis, a navy shirt, and his  
  
nice warm wool socks. He put the precious jewel on a string and  
  
put the string around his neck. He thought about his dream, and it  
  
still scared him that he might die saving someone he hadn't seen  
  
the face of. As he walked out of his room, he saw Adrianne waiting  
  
for him in the kitchen.  
  
"I'm going to need a prom dress," she said, hoping he would  
  
take her hint. "I'm going to need to a suit," Jake replied. "Would  
  
you like to pick out a dress while I pick out my suit?" Adrianne  
  
laughed. "What's there to pick out? Guys always have the most  
  
boring clothes. Don't you agree?" Jake nodded. "Girls usually  
  
have better clothes than us guys, and it's not fair. You all get to  
  
wear bright colors, and dresses, and what not. But guys get to wear  
  
just one type of clothing all the time."  
  
"You need to get a life." Adrianne said to him. They both  
  
broke into peals of laughter as she said that. "You know what I just  
  
realized? I don't have any extra clothes. You wouldn't happen to  
  
have anything for me to wear, would you?" Jake raised his hand.  
  
"Wait here." He went into his bedroom and rummaged around in  
  
his dresser until he came out with some rather feminine clothes.  
  
"I have no idea why these are in here, but you can keep them  
  
afterwards. A keepsake of our time together." Adrianne smiled and  
  
went into the bathroom to put them on. "How do these things fit  
  
you? They're so big," she said from within her makeshift changing  
  
area. "Fit into what?" Jake asked her. "The shirt," she replied.  
  
"They seem to fit an elephant." Jake frowned. "I don't have any  
  
pair of pants bigger than a size medium." Adrianne laughed.  
  
"What's so funny Adrianne?" She came out of the bathroom  
  
wearing the clothes. "I was trying to wear one of your towels."  
  
They both laughed.  
  
********************************************  
  
Becca was depressed again. She still couldn't remember what  
  
the face of the man in red armor was, at least she assumed it was a  
  
man. 'Well, Bec, you know what they say about assuming,' she  
  
thought to herself. ' When you assume, you make an ass out of you  
  
and me.' She was thinking of calling up Jimbo and talking to him  
  
about it, but she decided to go see a counselor instead. Counselor  
  
Diana. She had a last name, but Becca could never remember it for  
  
the life of her.  
  
Councilor Diana was a rock that she could hold onto. Becca  
  
remembered when she had first called up Diana Hotlines on the  
  
phone and talked for hours about Jimbo and Ben and her wacky  
  
love life. Diana just listened, as if she had nothing more important  
  
she could be doing. Becca liked that feeling. She also got that  
  
feeling very vaguely when she was talking to Ben. It was as if  
  
he......... no. It couldn't be. Ben was just her friend, nothing more.  
  
She decided to call up her councilor.  
  
"Hello? Councilor Diana? I've got another Jimbo problem."  
  
The councilor on the other end laughed. "I figured as much. It's  
  
always a Jimbo problem." Becca frowned. "Actually, this time it's  
  
more of a Ben problem too. I think Ben is jealous of Jim for some  
  
reason. Every time I bring up the subject, he just kinda zones out,  
  
ya know? It's as if........" she trailed away. "As if what?" Diana  
  
asked. "Never mind," Becca said as she nervously got dressed.  
  
"It's nothing. 'Bye!" She hung up  
  
********************************************  
  
"It's the perfect bait," said the cloaked figure. "It's too easy.  
  
The Red Dragoon is madly in love with her, and he would do  
  
anything to prove it. All we have to do is bait her! Mullog!" The  
  
imp-like creature Mullog crawled over to him. "Yesh Mashter?" it  
  
crooned. "You have the Faceless Card, right?" The creature  
  
nodded. "Yesh Mashter," it said. "Use it on the girl named Becca.  
  
The Dragoon will fall to her charm and he'll think she finally  
  
wants him," the hooded figure said. "It's just too easy!" He cackled  
  
again.  
  
"Eevano." A woman's voice echoed through the halls of his  
  
palace. "His Majesty wants that girl quickly, so I suggest you kill  
  
her before you get too emotionally attached. This councilor scam  
  
isn't going to work forever. Becca is smart. She'll find you out, and  
  
then she'll get her Dragoon friend to kill you." Eevano laughed. He  
  
put a voice changer up to his mouth.  
  
"She won't figure it out," he said, sounding like Councilor  
  
Diana. "I killed the real councilor a long time ago. If she comes to  
  
visit her, she'll get a real surprise, and then we'll have her." He put  
  
the voice changer back down.  
  
"Why do we need her anyway? Adrianne is the one with the  
  
special powers," he asked. "The master requested her personally,"  
  
the woman replied. "He wants her to absorb the special powers  
  
concealed in her. So we capture both of them."  
  
********************************************  
  
"So you've driven how many times before?" Adrianne asked  
  
as she got into his dad's brand new, $10,000 Tiburon. "I told you,  
  
lots of times," Jake lied. "You're a poor liar." "I know," Jake  
  
replied as he buckled up. He pulled out of the driveway, and  
  
promptly hit a mailbox. His mailbox.  
  
"Now, this dress shop is just down the street, right? I mean,  
  
you're not driving me all over town in this thing, are you?"  
  
Adrianne said timidly. Jake lined the car up with the road.  
  
"Adrianne, will you relax, nothing is gonna happen."  
  
They pulled out of Jake's driveway, and again hit something.  
  
It was someone's blue bin. "Recycling can be so annoying," Jake  
  
quipped as he backed the car away from the deformed recycling  
  
bin. Neither of them noticed a black car right behind them. At the  
  
wheel was a strange, imp-like creature who worked for Eevano. He  
  
was the tallest one, tall as a human, so he could drive a car. The  
  
imp put the car into the drive position and went after Jake and  
  
Adrianne. Jake and the mysterious black car pulled out of Jake's  
  
street, and the black car followed him to the dress shop.  
  
Adrianne went inside. "I'm going to go pick a dress out. Will  
  
you wait for me here?" Jake nodded. Adrianne was right in front of  
  
the store when the imp-like creature grabbed her and shoved her in  
  
the trunk of his black convertible. "Help!" she yelled as he was  
  
taking her away, but no one seemed to hear. It was as if they were  
  
all in a trance. "Jake!" Jake jumped over to the imp-like creature  
  
and demanded he give Adrianne back. The creature just glared at  
  
him and threw some whitish powder at his face, shoved Adrianne  
  
in the trunk, and drove off. Jake fell on the ground with a sickening  
  
thump.  
  
"I......... can't......... lose her," Jake said as he tried in vain  
  
to rise. A man in a black cloak ran over to his side and poured a  
  
silver-colored liquid in a perfect circle around Jake's body.  
  
"You're going to be okay," the man said as Jake was  
  
mysteriously able to stand again. "Who are you, and how do you  
  
know about-" "No time," the man said as he swung into the  
  
Tiburon. "Jump on the hood. Only you can save her now."  
  
********************************************  
  
Becca put the phone down on the receiver. 'How could I be  
  
so stupid?' she thought. 'Man, she just doesn't care. No one does.'  
  
Her brown eyes wet with tears, she picked up the phone again and  
  
dialed the number of the only person she wanted to talk to right  
  
now. Ben. It was strange, feeling one way about Jim and a totally  
  
different way about Ben. They were just so similar. Like brothers  
  
almost. 'Maybe it's not Jim I like,' she thought.  
  
A crash came from her kitchen. Her thoughts interrupted, she  
  
walked into the room, and found no one there. 'That's odd,' she  
  
thought. Then a tiny imp-like creature jumped on her back and  
  
pulled her to the floor. Ben was on the line.  
  
"Becca? Becca, hello?" He heard her screams over the phone.  
  
"Hold on Becca, I'll be right over."  
  
********************************************  
  
Jake followed the instructions of the mysterious man and  
  
jumped on the hood of his car. "Not yet," the man yelled up at him.  
  
"I have to save Adrianne, you told me so yourself," Jake replied.  
  
"No, first you need to unleash your hidden power." Jake's hands  
  
went to his neck and felt the green sphere. He focused on the desire  
  
that powered his life: the desire to save the earth. 'Wait, that's not  
  
it,' Jake thought as he felt the change take him over. The stone was  
  
already working it's magic. It was the desire of the spirit that lived  
  
in the stone that the world be saved.  
  
Finally, the change was complete. Jake could feel his body  
  
become a living weapon. Fortunately for him, he had parked the  
  
car in a remote parking area and no one saw his transformation.  
  
Precious time had been lost during this time, so Jake felt it crucial  
  
to use all the time he had left wisely. The strange man started the  
  
car, or so Jake guessed because he felt a sudden jolt as the car  
  
started moving.  
  
They chased after Adrianne and the imp-like  
  
creature for a full five minutes at top speed before catching up to  
  
them. Jake pulled out his giant cannon and fired a concentrated  
  
beam of energy at the lock on the trunk. The lock melted off, and  
  
the trunk flew open as Adrianne pushed with all her might. Jake  
  
leapt over the gap connecting the two cars and rapped his arms  
  
around Adrianne. "You're going to be alright now," he said with  
  
what he hoped to be a comforting tone. She looked up at him and  
  
smiled. The trunk came crashing back down on them, but, thanks  
  
to Jake's enormous wings, it didn't shut. This is probably a good  
  
thing, even though they could have just pushed upward to open it  
  
again since the lock was broken.  
  
With a giant leap, Jake flew into the air with Adrianne in his  
  
arms. He looked into her green eyes, and said "You okay?" She  
  
nodded. He held her closer as her flew up higher. "Where would  
  
you like to be dropped off?" "At a friend's house, right there," she  
  
responded and pointed at Becca's house. "I'm not a taxi service,"  
  
Jake said, and Adrianne laughed. "Sorry." Jake shook his head.  
  
"No really, I don't mind. It's on my way."  
  
He dropped Adrianne off when he noticed Ben's car in the  
  
driveway. 'Hmm, that's odd,' he thought to himself. They went  
  
inside to find Becca on the floor crying, and Ben doing his best to  
  
comfort her. "I'm gonna stay here and do what I can to calm them  
  
down," Adrianne said as she ran over to Becca. "Oh, and by the  
  
way," she said as Jake left. "Thank you, for saving my life." Jake  
  
smiled again. "Don't mention it." He ran out the front door and  
  
flew on his giant mechanical wings back home.  
  
Becca's tears hit the floor with a splash as Ben and Adrianne  
  
tried to get some kind of reason as to why she was flooding her  
  
house. Becca opened one eye, and it's icy-blueness glowed with a  
  
hint of cruelty as she uttered one terrifying word that made Ben  
  
start to sweat: "Dragoon."  
  
********************************************  
  
A/N: Well, what do you think? Just to show my lack of  
  
creativity with names, Lord of the Rings fans should spell Mullog  
  
backwards, and LoD fans, which there should be a lot of here,  
  
should switch the vowels in Mippa. I know this chapter wasn't a  
  
very long one, but it will get better at the prom and going to the  
  
prom. I might just have to split up the prom into two separate  
  
chapters! Now for a title............. 


	3. Chapter 3: The Prom

After returning Adrianne to Becca's house, Jake went back to his own home to get ready. 'I hope Adrianne had her dress picked out already', he thought. He slipped into his black tuxedo and looked at himself in a mirror. 'I'm pretty good lookin', he thought to himself. "How conceited of you," said a voice behind him. He turned around quickly to see a cloaked man standing in the hallway adjacent to his room. "Who are you?"  
  
"A name is just a way to deceive oneself. Defining the spirit is the target you should be aiming for." There was a glimmer of hatred in his eyes when he said the word, "spirit", almost as if he could see down deep into Jake's soul and pick out his most secluded secrets. "Now, about your friend Adrianne, you two are close, no? On the verge of being closer, yes?" Jake had no idea what that meant. Apparently the confusion showed, because the hooded man laughed and started again to speak.  
  
"I am an old friend of Adrianne's. Would you do something for me? Give her this message: 'The water flows freely, but only in the absence of a plug.' Too complicated for you? You are not meant to understand it, nor will you try. Relay that message to Adrianne, and I bid you farewell." And with that, he vanished in a puff of smoke.  
  
'What was that all about?' Jake thought.  
  
*****************************************************  
  
Jim got into his red sports car that his parent's bought him, and motioned for his other friends, Greg and Alex, to follow. Greg was a hair shorter than the other two teens, and he had very dark hair. Alex was the middle of the three, and like Jim, he was a brunette.  
  
Jim was, at his most basic level, a spoiled rich kid. He always not everything he wanted. Except Becca. For some reason he could not get Becca. Although he sensed a great need for him inside of her soul, she seemed to hold back every time they talked. It was almost as if she had feelings for someone else. Ben. It had to be. Their friendship had started to strain ever since last years prom, when Becca had snuck in with Jim and become part of prom court. Whatever Ben had planned to win Becca over, Jim would discover it, and thwart it.  
  
"Are we ready?" Greg asked as he got into the car. Jim mumbled a monosyllabic grunt which Greg assumed meant yes, so he buckled up and Jim started the car.  
  
"First stop, Becca's house."  
  
Jim put the key in the ignition and drove down Becca's road. As he neared Becca's house, something struck him as odd. Usually, Becca's younger sister, Amanda, was tailing along around Ben. But Ben was there in the front yard Amanda-less. 'Maybe he found a way to get rid of the pest,' he thought.  
  
"Hi Jim," Becca said in a way just a little more flirtatious than Jim had expected. She hopped into the back seat and threw her dyed blonde hair over her shoulder in an attempt to get Ben's attention. The attempt succeeded.  
  
"Becca, you seem overly flirtatious tonight. Something wrong?" She laughed and replied, "Nothing, but I can think of a few things wrong with the way you've ignored me all these years." Ben tried to protest, but Becca put a finger to his lips. "Less talk, more tongue." And right then and there, she kissed him passionately, as if she had no inhibitions. Ben squirmed for a while, but eventually he just let the heat of the moment take him over, and enjoy the kiss he had been waiting for all his teenage life.  
  
Just then, Adrianne walked out of the house. " I've been trying to decide if this necklace goes with this dre-" She looked up Ben and Becca. "Did I miss something? And why is Ben here? Becca told me he wasn't coming."  
  
Greg spoke up. "Apparently, he is."  
  
*****************************************************  
  
Jake looked at his watch again. 'Where could they be?' he thought. 'Calm down. Adrianne and Jim and the others wouldn't just abandon you, would they?' His apprehension rose. 'It's twenty minutes to prom, and I still haven't got my date. Where is Adrianne?'  
  
He stood out on the front porch of his house and shivered in the slight 8:00 chill as he waited for Jim and the others to drive up. This prom was promised to be the greatest ever, and that was saying something, because Jake had heard that the last prom was amazing. The teacher in charge, Mr. Rice, had promised live music.  
  
'Probably gonna be Cher or something,' he thought. He sighed in the cool of the evening. "It's only spring. The sun shouldn't have set this early," he said out loud. It had been almost twenty minutes since Jim had said he'd be there.  
  
Finally, Jim's red sports car pulled into Jake's driveway. Hop in, I think we got room for one more," Jim said, although the car didn't look like it could hold anymore people without sagging. Eventually, Jake managed to fit into the car, but it took some work. He sat next to Becca. She threw him a flirtatious look.  
  
"Hey cutie. You're lookin' good in that suit," she said to Jake. "Why thank you- Hey are you alright? You don't seem  
  
yourself," Jake replied.  
  
"Actually, I feel more myself than ever," she said. "I'm free!" This scared everyone else. Except Ben.  
  
"Isn't she great?" he said, clearly blinded by the earlier kiss that Jake had missed. It was blatantly obvious, to Jake at least, that something had to be done about Becca's erratic behavior.  
  
Jim groaned. "I still have to fit Amber and her twin in this car. We're pushin' it as is!" Ben smiled and looked at Becca with a mischievous look in his eye.  
  
"Becca can ride on my lap," he said, and Becca unbuckled and sat on his lap. "Adrianne and Jake can do the same." Jake looked at Adrianne and she shrugged. So she took off her seatbelt and sat on his lap. The couples buckled back in.  
  
"There. Now if Amber can sit on Greg's lap, and Kelly on Alex's, then we can all fit in this car." He let out a sigh of relief as Becca laughed. "Yeah, right after we get arrested. I'm not sure which one, but I'm sure this violates some kind of law." Jake turned around to face Becca and talked through the leather of Adrianne's thick coat to hide her dress until they were at the prom. "Hmne frunum frum," he said. Becca raised an eyebrow. "What the hell are you talking about?" Jake pushed the coat out of his way. Adrianne shifted so that she was sideways on his lap, careful not to lose the white hat that was placed neatly on her head to not only hide her hairdo, but to keep it the same as well. Jake continued. "I said, you're not yourself." Becca rolled her icy-blue eyes at him. "I told you, I'm fine."  
  
There was something odd about Becca. Something different, besides the 180° turn in her personality. So Jake pressed the issue. "You seem different. Did you do something to your hair?" Becca smiled. "Not the hair." Jake rubbed his chin with mock contemplation. "The eyes? You always used to have such beautiful brown eyes." She shrugged. "Contacts." Ben shifted her so that he could talk. She was also wearing a coat to hide her dress. "But you don't need glasses. Why would you get contacts?" he asked. "These are the kind that don't fix your vision." They all nodded.  
  
Except for Ben and Jake, they were fooled. Becca's spell over Ben had been broken, and for an instant, his face reflected his suspicions. He looked at Jake, and Jake nodded. "Good for you Becca," said Ben as he tried to take off her hat that matched Adrianne's exactly. "Leave the hat. Later you can worry about stuff like taking off my hat. Or any other things you feel like taking off."  
  
********************************************  
  
Kelly Milton was much like her sister. In fact, they were identical twins. Kelly, however, was only ten points above genius, while her sister was fifteen. She wound her raven-colored hair up into a bun and put a white hat on her head to cover it up. She had met with Adrianne, Becca, and her sister to decide to do this: hide their hair and dress from their dates so they could be surprised at the prom. Her coat was already on, and she, unlike her sister, was absent-minded, so she couldn't remember the exact color of the dress.  
  
Amber. There were times when she hated her perfect sister. All the guys that she liked were always madly in love with Amber instead. SHE was always the pretty one, even though they looked exactly alike. SHE was always the smart one, just because she had a single point over Kelly. SHE was always congratulated for doing well in sports that Kelly excelled in. There was one thing that Kelly could do better than her sister: dance. 'I'm twice the dancer she dreams of being,' she thought in consolation. And Amber had quite the imagination in her dreams. But none of the guys were interested in a girl that can dance.  
  
And Amber had the special ability in the family: every once in a while, she would get premonitions. Visions of a possible future, stuff like that. Her parents thought that she was just SO talented, that they fawned over her so much that Kelly was completely ignored sometimes. Even at her own dance recitals.  
  
A horn honked from her front yard, and she heard her sister yell something like "Come on Kel, we'll be late!" She walked out of her bathroom. She left her house and locked the door.  
  
When she turned around, she saw a very disgusted Amber buckled on top of an even more disgusted Greg. The two had been mortal enemies ever since the first grade when Greg scored higher on a test than Amber. Their friends kept telling them that it was a silly thing to feud over, but neither would listen, and they remain enemies to this very day. Then she noticed that there was no more room in the car.  
  
"Hi Kelly. Can you do me a HUGE favor and sit on Alex's lap, if even just for the trip?" Jim asked. Kelly rolled her eyes. Alex was even brainier than her sister. He had a lower GPA, but he just gave off a 'smart' aura. He had glasses, which definitely added to the look.  
  
"Sure thing James," she said. One thing about Kelly was that she insisted on calling everyone by the names they were born with.  
  
"Now that everyone's here," Jim said. "Let's get going!"  
  
********************************************  
  
Eevano pulled off his cloak to reveal a black suit. 'Adrianne will be surprised to see me at her prom,' he thought. Eevano had only known her for a short time, but it was enough for him to love her. 'I will get Adrianne back, whatever the cost.'  
  
The woman came out of the shadows again. "Eevano, what have I told you time and time again. Don't get emotionally involved! You have started to fall for that girl ever since you took over this host body. Now get out of that suit and go check on the Faceless's victim."  
  
Eevano pulled out a tiny mirror and saw Ben's eyes and smiled. "The plan is working perfectly," he said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to the prom." As he walked away, the woman yelled at his back, "She doesn't love you!" Eevano stopped dead in his tracks and looked back at her. "Then I'll have to make her love me."  
  
********************************************  
  
"I have never seen a more beautiful prom, have you Adrianne?" Becca said very obviously near the decorating committee. Adrianne pulled her away for fear of someone noticing her. The guys waited for their dates over at the snacks table, where a very obviously angry Miss Luten was passing out free pins to everyone to join Biology Club.  
  
Suddenly, Adrianne came walking onto the dance floor. She removed her hat, and her golden brown hair fell to her shoulders in what seemed like slow motion. Then came the coat. It was as if she was baiting him, waiting for the right moment to unleash her dress on the unsuspecting eyes of her fellow classmates. With each button she undid, more heads turned to watch. Finally, the coat was completely off, and she slipped it off her shoulders and put it down on a chair on the side.  
  
Her dress was pure white, covered in sparkling sequins. The single strap over her left shoulder was held together by a dove pin. The other girls entered in a similar fashion, and their dresses where the same basic design, but different colors. Amber's was sapphire blue, while Kelly's an emerald green. Becca's was a deep, dark color that no one could quite identify. Ben broke the ice by walking over to Becca and taking her hand. The others soon followed suit.  
  
Adrianne and a prissy blonde girl named Krissi Manion were the only ones still sitting alone on the sidelines. Krissi was crying because she didn't have a date. Then, Jimbo comforted Krissi and asked her to dance. Then only Adrianne was left. Jake decided it was time to act. He walked up to her and said, "May I have this dance?" She laughed a little and nodded. Once the song was over, Mr. Rice got up to the mic and started to speak.  
  
"Now, I know I promised live music, and I intend to make good on that promise. So here they are, performing their smash hit, "What Happened to Good Old Fun?", our very own Regality!" Greg ran up onstage, determined not to miss his solo as lead singer of the group.  
  
Regality was quite popular with the students in Jake's high school. They started out as just another band made up of silly high school kids, but, with the support of their peers, grew to be almost as popular as some national bands. Most of the kids had already bought their first CD.  
  
As Greg sang his heart out onstage, Adrianne let loose on the dance floor. Jake tried to follow her example, but she outshone him. After the song was finished, (despite it's popularity it was rather short) Greg went back up to the mic.  
  
"Thank you everyone. Now, we're gonna tone it down a little with a guest singer from the audience. She's smart, she's sassy, thank god she looks so classy! She's Amber Milton!" As the crowd cheered, Jake thought, 'What a ham. He just loves milking his audience like that.' Adrianne sighed into his chest. Watching Greg speak and Amber walk up to the mic and start her very annoyed thank-you speech, he hadn't noticed that Adrianne was right up against his chest. He smiled and put a hand on her head.  
  
"Thank you for that touching speech. Now on with the song!" Amber went back up to the mic. After shooting a venomous look to Greg, she began to sing in a beautiful alto voice.  
  
"Have you ever been in love?  
  
You could touch the moonlight.  
  
When your heart is shooting starts,  
  
You're holding Heaven in your arms.  
  
Have you ever been in love?"  
  
It was a slow song, so all the couples slipped into the arms of their dance partners. Adrianne put her arms around Jake's neck, and he put his arms on her hips.  
  
"Have you ever walked on air?  
  
Felt like you were dreamin'  
  
When you never thought it could  
  
But it really feels that good  
  
Have you ever been in love."  
  
Jake was so close to Adrianne that he could hear her breathe. Their noses were only inches apart, and he looked into her eyes, and she looked back into his.  
  
"Have you ever been in love?  
  
You could touch the moonlight.  
  
When your heart is shooting starts,  
  
You're holding Heaven in your arms.  
  
Have you ever been in love?"  
  
Jake and Adrianne drew closer. Jake moved his head slightly sideways, and their faces were now nearly touching. Jake pulled Adrianne closer.  
  
"The time I spent waiting for something  
  
That was Heaven sent.  
  
When you find it don't let go  
  
I know..."  
  
Jake closed his eyes, and Adrianne did the same. Her hand moved from his shoulder to his head as she pulled him close. "I love you," Jake whispered to her. "I love you too," she whispered back.  
  
"Have you ever said a prayer  
  
And found that it was answered  
  
All my hope has been restored  
  
I ain't looking anymore  
  
Have you ever been..."  
  
This was the moment. Finally, Jake and Adrianne kissed. It was tentative at first, but then they both became more passionate, more alive. She tasted vaguely of strawberries, with a hint of toothpaste.  
  
"Some place that you ain't leavin'  
  
Somewhere you gonna stay  
  
When you finally found the meanin'  
  
Have you ever felt this way?"  
  
People started to stare, most of all Becca. Her face contorted into an evil look, and her eyes were on fire. Ben would not even go near her now. She stormed over to the couple. Jake and Adrianne, of course, remained blissfully unaware of the flaming rage that was about to collide with them.  
  
"The time I spent waiting for something  
  
That was Heaven sent.  
  
When you find it don't let go  
  
I know..."  
  
Ben grabbed her hand, and she turned to him. He shook his head as if to say, "Let it be." She narrowed her eyes at him, and that was the moment that he knew this was not Becca.  
  
"Have you ever been in love?  
  
You could touch the moonlight.  
  
You can even reach the stars  
  
Doesn't matter near or far  
  
Have you ever been in love?  
  
Have you ever been in love?  
  
Have you ever been in love?  
  
So in love."  
  
Amber stepped away from the mic. A thunderous applause erupted from the gym. A passerby might have thought a riot was going on in the tiny gym of Jake's high school.  
  
"Yes, yes we're all glad that Amber is a beautiful singer, but we must remember that-" Greg could not speak because there was a mob of people surrounding Amber and thanking her much more than was necessary.  
  
"I wish people would mob us like that. NOW!" Greg shouted very loudly so that everyone would pay attention to him and not Amber. " We are going to play another slow song, one that we wrote ourselves." They started the song.  
  
Ben forcefully pulled Becca closer to him and held a gun to her stomach. "Who are you really?" he said, pushing the weapon further into her belly. "You are good, perhaps good enough work for my master," she replied. "And who is that?" Ben asked. Becca smiled. "You'll never live long enough to find out!" A wave of energy pulsed from her body and knocked over everyone in the gym.  
  
********************************************  
  
"So in love."  
  
Jake vaguely heard the song stop, but he was slightly preoccupied. Adrianne slowly pulled away, and Jake did the same. They heard Greg say something, but they were lost in each other's eyes, so they didn't hear much of the short speech. Adrianne's mouth opened like she was going to speak, but instead she slowly backed away. Jake reached his hand after her, and she stopped. The music started again.  
  
Jake and Adrianne just stared at each other. Adrianne's was a look of confusion mixed with fear, while Jake's was one of love mixed with uncertainty.  
  
"I don't want us to be like this. I love you," Jake said with his arm outstretched.  
  
Adrianne opened her mouth. "Jake.. I.." Suddenly, a burst of energy threw them to the ground. Becca laughed evilly, and her body fell to the ground and twitched convulsively. "I........ will........ kill........ you.......... all!" Her voice was speaking the words, but there was another voice behind it, like she was possessed. "I........ will........ kill........ you.......... all!"  
  
*****************************************************  
  
A/N: Wow, that was great. By the way, I don't own the song that Amber sings, some suits that produce for Celine Dion do. Not quite sure who they are, but they're not mining, and that's that. Next chapter, big battle scene, new Dragoon, more kissing, and the reason why Ben brought a gun to prom. 


	4. Chapter 4: RedEye Dragoon

Becca, or at least what looked like Becca, rose to her feet, an evil smile plastered on her dim-lit face. "Dragoon........." the creature that was once Becca said. "Come.... to.... me.... Dragoon...." Jake thought with a sickening horror 'Oh my god, she wants me.'  
  
*******************************************  
  
Becca awoke. Her brown eyes fluttered open and she saw nothing but darkness everywhere. She screamed, but no words came out. She tried to move, but an invisible force was holding her down. Desperate, she cried out the name of the one person who could help her.  
  
"BEN!!!!"  
  
********************************  
  
"BEN!!!!"  
  
Ben heard Becca's voice through the screams. 'I guess I have no choice,' he thought. 'I've gotta save her.' He ran at the creature, and was promptly hit back, and he fell unconscious in a corner.  
  
**********************************  
  
Seeing Ben's body fly across the room was a sign that Jake needed to leave. So he grabbed Adrianne by the arm, and started to run away with the others.  
  
"Oh no you don't!" The creature screamed as it flew towards Adrianne. Wrapping it's arms around her waist, it pulled backwards and Jake was thrown into the bleachers. 'This would be an opportune time to become a Dragoon,' he thought.  
  
He let the insanity of the Void Dragoon take him over. Feeling the now familiar weight of the armor on his body, he knew the change was complete. He flew out from under the bench, and raised his sword. "Give her back."  
  
The creature turned. "Ah, back for more, are you?" it said in a now honey- sweet voice. "Well, why don't you save your little-"She faced Jake. A look of fear and confusion crossed her face. "No," she said. "No, there can't be TWO!" 'Two?' Jake thought. The creature let out a long scream, and its face hollowed out. The beautiful dress shredded itself, and her skin became sickly and pale. Jake's face went white.  
  
"A banshee."  
  
**********************************  
  
"MULLOG!!!!!" Eevano yelled as his cowering servant bounded over to him.  
  
"Mippa got to her firsht! I'm shorry Mashter!"  
  
"If you can fix it, you may redeem yourself." Eevano said calmly. Mullog nodded. "Of course Mashter."  
  
**********************************  
  
The banshee let out another horrible scream as it raked its claws towards Jake. Jake dodged to his right. An imp-like creature grabbed him from behind. It had a freakishly strong grip, and Jake was completely caught.  
  
"How does it feel, to be the mouse instead of the cat, great Dragoon?"  
  
Jake heard a gun loading off in the confusion somewhere. So he decided to stall.  
  
"Please don't kill me! I don't even know how to use my powers!" Jake squealed, playing the innocent card.  
  
"Don't lie to me, Dragoon. You must know that, as the Void Dragoon, you are destined to lead your fellow warriors to victory. You are the strongest of the Dragoons, and their king."  
  
'Their king?' Jake thought. "But I don't even know who the other Dragoons are!"  
  
"My instincts tell me you'll find one soon enough."  
  
All eyes turned in the direction of the voice. It was the man that visited Jake and told him to deliver the strange message.  
  
"Oh Adrianne, I have something to tell you."  
  
She smiled weakly. "This is kinda not the time. And how do you know my name?"  
  
"Lucky guess," Jake said. "That man over there told me to tell you that 'The water flows freely, but only in the absence of a plug.' I don't get it. But I thought you might."  
  
Adrianne's face went white. "It can't be," she said in a small, timid voice. "Evan!?"  
  
The cloaked man smiled. "How have you been?"  
  
**************************  
  
Becca threw herself against her prison walls in a desperate attempt to get out. 'These walls are thick,' she thought vaguely to herself. She tried throwing her entire weight against the wall one final time. 'Nothing,' she thought hopelessly. 'There's only one person who can save me now.'  
  
**************************  
  
Adrianne's face was white. 'How could he be here?' Seeing her fear, Evan smiled.  
  
"I told you I'd contact you sometime. I wanted to call you, but I thought it too awkward." Adrianne began to cry. Jake struggled against his demonic captor, but it did no good. His anger must have shown on his face, because Evan turned his attention to him.  
  
"Like her, do you? I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to steal her from you for a while. Probably forever." He grabbed Adrianne's arm, but she pulled away. Due to the flimsiness of banshees, the creature's arm fell off. "Run for it Adrianne!" Jake yelled at her. She turned and ran away. The imp holding him tightened his grip around Jake's ribs, and everything started to go hazy. 'I guess this is it,' he thought. 'I'm sorry I couldn't save you Adrianne.' In his blurry vision, he saw Evan overtake Adrianne and then, nothing.  
  
*************************  
  
Adrianne ran from Evan, not even looking back to see if the Void Dragoon was okay. As she ran, she felt strong arms grab her from behind, and knew Evan had captured her. Suddenly, without warning, Evan was knocked to the ground, and Adrianne was released from his grip. A blonde boy in red armor nodded at her, and she ran over to the Void Dragoon. The red armored man must have noticed because he aimed his weapon at the head of the Dragoon's captor. He fired his handgun, and purple blood splattered everywhere.  
  
********************  
  
Jake felt the air reenter his lungs, and saw that Adrianne was safe. She ran over to him and threw her arms around his neck, which made Evan very jealous. The red armored man was busy fighting the banshee, who was in the process of being "cleansed" by him. Adrianne saw Evan's reflection in her Dragoon's eyes, and threw him to the floor in time to narrowly avoid being hacked to pieces by Evan's sword.  
  
"Adrianne, get somewhere safe," Jake said. Adrianne didn't need to be told twice. She ran for it, and hid somewhere in the kitchen.  
  
"Your fire friend killed my servant Mippa," said Evan. "You should be impressed. He's one of my strongest followers." Jake drew his sword. "Yeah, well your about to find out how strong the powers of the Dragoons are." The sound of metal clashing on metal echoed throughout the gym as the two opponents met on the field of battle. Fiercely their swords crossed, and each rival was quicker to act than his previous swing. They got faster and faster, until both were starting to tire. It was a fight to the death, and it may be the last battle either of them fought.  
  
*************************  
  
"Becca, it's me, Ben."  
  
Ben lowered his gun to try and reason with his date from hell. "It's me Becca. Please turn back to the girl I fell in love with. I knew it from the moment I saw you. You had that cute dyed blonde hair, and your beautiful brown eyes. When you first transferred to our school, you had the cute spaghetti-strap shirt on. It was red, remember?" He saw the banshee's control weaken. It's arm had been magically sewn back on again, and was as good as new now.  
  
"And you had those khaki Capri's on. I couldn't take my eyes off of you. Then we became friends, and I started to get to know you better, and you really make me smile whenever I see you or hear from you, and cry when we are apart." Becca's brown eyes watered. The banshee had almost completely lost control of her. "Do you mean it?" A tear slipped from Becca's eyes as Ben stepped closer. "Every word."  
  
Becca smiled. She walked up to Ben and kissed him. The real Becca kissed him. With one final scream, the banshee vanished completely from it's host body. After the kiss, Ben looked into Becca's eyes. "I love you." Becca kissed him again. "What am I doing in this ugly blackish dress?" Ben laughed. "Let's worry about that later."  
  
************************  
  
Jake delivered one final swing to Evan and knocked the sword out of his hand. Evan vanished in a puff of smoke. "I congratulate you on your victory, Dragoon," said his voice. It came from all directions. "As your reward, I will give you my name. Eevano." The voice stopped speaking, and it seemed Eevano had left.  
  
Jake collapsed on the floor. Ben ran up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders.  
  
"Are you okay? Oh god, he could have killed you!" Ben helped him stand up. Jake gave him a confused look. Ben must have seen this, because he looked at Jake and said, "Jake don't you recognize me? It's me, Ben." Jake looked at his body, and realized he had changed back. Ben had done the same.  
  
"So what, do you guys just go around fighting evil and stuff?" said Becca. "Basically," Ben said. "We're gonna need code names. How about Dart for me, and Lloyd for you." Jake raised an eyebrow. "Lloyd?" Ben sighed. "Gimme a break. I spent all last night coming up with those!" They all laughed.  
  
Suddenly, Jake stopped. "Wait a minute, it feels like we're missing someone." The three teenagers looked around and realized who it was that they were missing. Jake turned around wildly as he searched for the friend whom he finally realized was missing. "Oh my god, where's Adrianne?"  
  
**************************  
  
Adrianne figured she was safe in the kitchen, far away from all the fighting. She was dead wrong.  
  
She ran in through the giant double doors that led to the cafeteria that led to the kitchen. Pole-vaulting herself over a countertop, she hid behind it for what seemed like hours, but was really only about a minute. Then she heard clanging of metal. Assuming it was just the battle raging outside in the gym, she stood up. A dark figure was standing in the doorway, a knife in his hands. Adrianne backed into a wall as the body moved towards her. Knife in hand, it advanced to her spot on the wall.  
  
She jumped at it, and dove under the figure's legs. It took a swipe at her, and it cut her right arm. Blood flowing freely from her wound, and her heart pumping with adrenaline, Adrianne ran into a different part of the kitchen. She dodged between counters and pots and pans and many other kitchen appliances, but still her zealous stalker hunted her.  
  
Throwing herself down on the floor to avoid flying knives, she found another body on the floor. She recognized it as Lunch lady Doris's body. The dagger in her chest matched the ones the killer was throwing. She heard one whistle by her head, and she decided it was time to go. She made a run for the door, when one of the blades hit her in the leg. She fell to the ground. 'I'm dead,' she thought. 'He's gonna kill me. I'm never gonna see the light of day again. God I wish it weren't over. There's so much I'd like to do! I can't die here.'  
  
She mustered enough strength to stand, and ran for dear life. She rounded a corner and threw the knife with her blood on it into the freezer. One of the lunch ladies' bodies was in it already, and it was well hidden, just a hand showing. She knocked over some pots and pans to make her chaser think she had fallen. The rouge pots and pans fell out the open window to her left.  
  
She hid behind the freezer door and waited for her stalker to go in. She looked through the crack in the door, her heart pumping so loud she was afraid he might hear it. When she saw his shadowy body stooped over the bloody carcass, she pushed on the door with all her might. It shut. She turned the handle and locked it shut.  
  
Her adversary screamed at the top of his lungs, "LETSH MESH OUTSH!!!!!!!" It was the same strange accent of the creature from her dream two nights ago.  
  
Sighing, she felt sleepiness overcome her. She was getting weak from loss of blood. "No," she made a feeble effort to resist, but she had lost enough of it that she was starting to get weaker. She was still strong enough, however, to call for help.  
  
"JAKE!"  
  
*************************  
  
Ben and Jake were still back in the gym when they heard the cry. They looked at each other in horror and instantly said the same word simultaneously. "Dragoon."  
  
"When will you learn!?" said a voice from the shadows. The source of the voice stepped forward. "You need to give yourselves more time to recharge your powers." Jake, Ben, and Becca all turned to look at the newly revealed man in the dim moonlight.  
  
"And how do you know?" Ben asked. "Good question Ben," the man said. Ben's face paled a little. 'How does he know my name?' The man turned. "I know a lot more about you than that, Ben," he said, as if he could read Ben's mind. "I know all that there is to know about you, and you too Jake. I know stories of battle and loss that would make your toenails curl. But I'm not here to share any of that." He walked toward the drinks table.  
  
"We'll start with my name. I have a real one, but for now, you can call me Lavitz. I came from an alternate future, one where the Dragoons have all been slain by Eevano. But, one girl had the power to turn back time, and she sent me here. That same girl was being hunted by Eevano over the years, and he found the perfect body to inhabit to hit her heartstrings."  
  
"Can you hurry this up?" Jake growled, clenching his teeth. "Adrianne is in real danger in there!" The man laughed. "Impulsive. Jumping into danger at the first sign of Adrianne's discomfort. Just like I used to be."  
  
Jake stopped and stared at Lavitz. "Wait, you know Adrianne?" But the man had mysteriously disappeared again, leaving only a note hastily scribbled on a napkin.  
  
'To Jake and Adrianne, 'If you are reading this, than we are all dead and Eevano has gotten us. But I implore you to not make the mistakes I did. If it comes down to a choice between your friend and the mission, make the decision your heart leads you to. Don't make the decision that will lead to death of your friends. It will only lead to suffering on the part of you and your comrades. That is why I have sent someone back to prevent this from happening. Listen to him. Take his advice. He will call himself Lavitz. I leave you in Lavitz's capable hands.  
Sincerely,  
Shana, White Silver Dragoon'  
  
"What does she mean, 'your friend or the mission'? Will we have to choose between our allies and the task we set out to complete?" Becca thought out loud. Jake shook his head. "Looks like it. The stone feels warm again. Ben, let's go." They both let the insanity of the Dragoon overtake them once more. Gathering their weapons, they burst open the kitchen doors.  
  
*****************************  
  
Finding Adrianne didn't take much work. Jake scooped her carefully up into his arms. Ben held his gun up to the door and yelled, "Flame shot!" The door blew open with an explosive force, revealing a very cold demon. "Your time is up," Ben said as he pulled the trigger. The creature's chest burst apart, scattering it's limbs everywhere. Adrianne turned her head and gagged slightly. Blood spattered all over Ben's armor. He flew out through the window. Jake and Adrianne did the same. Ben went to his house, while Jake and Adrianne went to Adrianne's house.  
  
*******************  
  
Amber awoke screaming and in cold sweat. 'Oh god,' she thought. 'Was that just a nightmare, or was it a premonition?' She got out of bed and pulled out a slim, black book from her nightstand. It was her 'Vision Notebook.' Anytime she had a possible vision, she was instructed by her mental trainer, Councilor Diana, to pull out this book and write it down. ''How did it start," she thought out loud. 'Well, there was a field,' she began as she saw the dream again.  
  
And she was there, and Greg was there. He was just lying on the ground, not moving. Ben and Jake were lying on the ground as well. Adrianne was standing over their bodies, covered in blood. She was crying. All three of the boys were lying in pools of dark blood, and they each had broken eagle wings. Then a man of about twenty five or so walked in and started to comfort Adrianne. She shot him with a giant crossbow, just like she did the others.  
  
"You were right,'' were the only words she could say. Amber tried to move, but she was rooted to the spot. Terrified, she cried for help, but only Adrianne responded. She lifted her crossbow. "I'm sorry Evan," she said. And with that, she released the arrow and it pierced Amber right through the heart. A look of anguish on her face, Amber woke up just as she started to fall and black out.  
  
'That was the dream,' she thought. 'Better leave the councilor a message.' She went downstairs to get her family phone. Kelly was waiting for her.  
  
"Councilor Diana again?" Kelly said, pouring a glass of milk for her sister. "I don't know why you bother with that 'vision' stuff, it's probably just bogus anyway. A marketing ploy that Diana uses to draw in unsuspecting customers like our parents. You always get all the attention," she griped.  
  
As she dialed the phone, Amber turned around to look at her twin. "If I've told you once, I've told you a million times, I'd trade all that attention for one day in your shoes." Kelly slid the milk down the counter. "You say that," she said as Amber caught the glass. "But I don't think you mean it." Amber shook her head. "I can't argue about this right now. Hi, councilor?"  
  
Kelly sneaked into the other room and picked up their second phone. She listened in on the conversation. "Call me Diana. Another vision?" Amber sighed. "Yes. But this time I was the one getting shot, not the cloaked man." Kelly grabbed the phone and ducked behind the couch as Amber passed by the doorway.  
  
"I think that it means someone is going to die, and your friends, Ben and Jake and Greg, will be present. Now, the killer, what did you say her name was?'' the councilor asked. "Adrianne," a shaky Amber replied. "Her name was Adrianne. She had an enormous crossbow and she fired it at the guys and then at a young man and finally at me." Kelly had no idea what the dream meant, and apparently, neither did the councilor. "I have no idea what this means," Diana said quickly. "If you get any more visions, call me." Then she hung up.  
  
Carefully putting the phone back in the cradle, Kelly hid behind the couch once more and waited for Amber to go back to bed. Then she hurried silently to the phone and dialed Jake's number. She left a message telling him to call her at his earliest convenience. 'He's connected to the strange events of the prom somehow,' she thought. 'And this vision of Amber's is proof. Now if I can just get a hold of him.........'  
  
*******************  
  
As Jake touched down, Adrianne saw her parents waiting on the lawn. "Oh my god, are you okay Adrianne?" her mother said as she smothered Adrianne. "I'm fine Mom, thanks to this Dragoon here." Her father walked up to Jake. "Thank you so much for saving our daughter," he said. Adrianne looked at her parents. "Why don't you all go inside? I'll only be a minute. You can bake me cake or something." They smiled and reentered their house.  
  
"I never got to thank you properly for saving my life, you know," Adrianne said, turning back to Jake. "Yes you did," he said, nodding slightly. "I remember. You said 'Thank you, for saving my life', and I said 'Don't mention it.' Remember?" Adrianne moved closer. "No, that's not what I'm talking about." Jake found their faces getting closer again. His hand made it's way up her back and just above her dress's back neckline. His other hand was about on her waist.  
  
"Is this what you meant to say?" He pulled her close and kissed her again. He didn't want to give off the wrong idea, but he just couldn't help himself. Her injured hand rested lowly at his waist, and her good hand ended up running it's fingers through his hair. Jake folded his mechanical wings around her as he pulled her body up next to his. He loved being this close to her. It was like a feeling of weightlessness, except his feet were on the ground. At least, that was the best he could describe it to himself as.  
  
She was the first to stop, somewhat because she was tired, and somewhat because her parents were expecting her inside any minute now. 'Hell, they're probably watching right now,' she thought. She half expected them to burst outside and drag her back in with them. But they didn't. And that left the two of them staring into each other's eyes for quite a long time. Jake was the first to move. "I have to get back to saving the world," he joked. Adrianne smiled. "Can I ask you a favor? Can you tell me your name?" Jake stopped and turned. "Call me Lloyd." And with that, he flew off into the night. Hardly noticing her wounds, Adrianne smiled.  
  
*************************  
  
A/N: Wow, that was draining. I'll probably start the next chapter again soon anyway. Yes, there's more. But no more kissing for a while, I promise. Or at least I'll try. The next chapter won't be nearly as sappy, believe me.  
  
By the way, I've neglected this for so long and I can't believe no one has pointed it out to me. Let this be the official disclaimer for the whole story: I do not own Legend of Dragoon. There. Individual disclaimers, like the one from the last chapter, will make the occasional appearance. Until next chapter! 


	5. Chapter 5: Why do Fools Fall In Love

The next day was Sunday, so it was time for church. Well, it would normally be time for church, but Adrianne woke up in the hospital at noon. She didn't remember much from last night, except the kiss from the two men she cared for most. 'Maybe I should play it safe and go for a realistic relationship with Jake,' she thought as she sat up. Her right arm was scarred only a little, and her leg seemed to be okay. She had been pretty lucky.  
  
"I always get the unconscious ones," someone griped outside her room. "Stupid kids getting into knife fights-" the woman stopped in her tracks when she saw Adrianne she stopped. "Oh, hello. I'm, uh, Rawlena, and I'll be your savior today," she said, making a poor attempt at a joke. "Rawlena Mueller?" Adrianne asked. "One and the same," replied Rawlena. "I own Mueller Steel Mills, but I help out here at the local hospital in my spare time. But that daughter of mine, Kate, has been missing for quite a while." Rawlena then sat down at the foot of Adrianne's bed. "That's awful, I'm so sorry," Adrianne said to her.  
  
Rawlena appeared unmoved. "For all my millions of dollars, I can't seem to find one simple teenager girl. Poor Kate. She's probably being held for ransom at this very moment, lonely and-" Rawlena began, only to be interrupted. "Don't say that," said Adrianne comfortingly. "For all you know, she could be perfectly safe and waiting for you at home right now." Rawlena shook her head. "No, my butler would call me on my cell phone," she replied. "Well, um," Adrianne ventured. "Maybe she got past your butler. You never know." Rawlena smiled.  
  
Suddenly, without warning, the hospital window broke, and a thin girl with flaming red hair burst through. She looked to be about fifteen years old, and she was just a hair shorter than Adrianne, who was standing at the moment. Rawlena jumped to her feet. "Kate!" The girl looked at Rawlena and said feebly, "Mommy......" Then she pulled out two long and apparently very light swords and swung them madly around the room. "NO! No, you won't use me for this! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!'' Her screams echoed throughout the whole hospital. Adrianne ran out of the room, but Rawlena stayed behind. "Kate! Kate, are you alright?"  
  
The Void Dragoon was trying his very best to keep up, and Rawlena called Adrianne in to see the fight. "My daughter, swords master. Who'd have thought it?" Adrianne had to admit, Kate kept up surprisingly well with Lloyd's blows. Then Adrianne got a closer look at the Dragoon, and noticed it was not Lloyd. 'Hm, that's odd,' she thought. 'Who else has his powers?'  
  
*********************  
  
Jake grumbled as he picked the phone up. 'I was lucky enough to oversleep today, and the freakin' phone's gotta ring,' he thought as he walked over to the answering machine. The message was as follows:  
  
"Jake? Hello? This is Ben. Check today's paper and call me ASAP. Bye." 'What the...' Jake thought as he walked outside to get the paper. The front page was what caught his eye. He read out loud.  
  
'Armored Aerials Assault Adolescent Assembly.' According to local resident Krissi Manion, armored flying things came and trashed the class of 2004's prom last night. "I watched them attack half the cafeteria ladies, and everyone saw the gray one try to abduct Adrianne Something-or-Other, I don't know her last name." Needless to say, these people, who call themselves Dragoons, are dangerous, and should be avoided at all costs. Continued on page A5." The article went on to say how the Dragoons destroyed the prom, and how great Krissi was and how she had saved the whole town. Jake decided to call Ben.  
  
"Ben, have you seen this?" Jake said when he connected. Ben sighed into the receiver. "Don't worry, I have a plan to get Prissy Manion back twice as bad for that," Ben said, using a nickname that really got Krissi mad, even though she is prissy. Jake was intrigued.  
  
Krissi had always gotten on his nerves. Her "daddy" published the local paper, and she was in the class of 2004, so that was probably where the paper got its angle from. "How can we do that? She'll just twist the information so her father can print something else bad about us." Ben laughed with a hint of evil in his voice. "Well, it's a long and complex plan that involves Prissy, a connection to Jimbo, and the Dragoons." Jake leaned his arm on the couch. "I'm listening."  
  
*************************  
  
"The pieces are falling into place, Daddy," Krissi said to her father. "Soon the great and glorious world where you control everything will be at hand." Her father rose from his chair.  
  
"Krissi, I didn't create you to mess around like this. You've developed an attraction to that boy, haven't you?" Krissi looked shocked. "I was just messing around Daddy. We'll kill them all when the time is right. I know the plan. Duh!"  
  
"Krissi dear," Eevano said slowly. "The plan is to make the Dragoons look bad, not to try and sleep with them. Your part," he said. "Is to get close to the potential Dragoons and assassinate them. I will take care of the ones who have realized their Dragoon powers already." Krissi turned away. "You mean with that Mueller girl? Come on Daddy, certain people have certain skills, and fencing is not one of hers." Eevano stood up. "Krissi! Are you contradicting me!?" He appeared to be twenty feet tall. Krissi shrunk back. "N-no, sir," she said timidly. "It's just that-" "SILENCE!" Eevano yelled. "You are not to go against me again. UNDERSTAND!?" Krissi shuddered. "Y-yes sir." Eevano seemed to shrink back. "Good. Now go and do your job."  
  
*********************  
  
Ben made a few calls to Jimbo and some other friends of his before calling Jake again.  
  
"Alright, the plan has been set in motion. We'll put Jimbo in front of the manicure shop, pretending to wait for someone inside. He'll really be waiting for someone outside, Krissi. Then he can use his charm to easily seduce her into going home with him. I'm gonna be waiting there for her to kiss him good-bye, take a picture, and sell it to the papers as a scandal. What do you think?"  
  
"I think you spent WAY too much time coming up with this plan," Jake replied. "But it's a good one. You said the Dragoons are involved. How is that now?"  
  
Ben sighed in annoyance. "To clear our name of course."  
  
"Right," Jake said. "Now I have to make a phone call of my own, so bye." Ben smirked, although Jake couldn't see it. "Would it happen to have anything to do with your lip-lock with Adrianne last night?" Jake nodded. "Yep, both of them." Ben winced. "Two? Ouch. I'm guessing one as Jake, and one as Lloyd." Jake nodded again. His bangs bounced in his eyes, so he pushed them back. "Right again. I want her to be interested in me, not my Dragoon alter ego. So bye!" "Have fun," Ben said as he hung up.  
  
Jake hung the phone up, turned it back on, and dialed Adrianne's number. Her sister picked up.  
  
"Hello?" Jake turned around. "Yeah, can I talk to Adrianne?" A pause followed, and then he heard a timid, "Hello?" Jake took a big breath and then launched the mother of all speeches.  
  
"Adrianne, I don't want you to say anything until I'm done. I know we had a little, um, scene at the prom last night, and I know it means the world to me. I don't know how you feel about it, and, well, crap; I'm so bad at this. Um, I really, uh, like you, and if we can't be, er, involved, then I want us to just be friends, no weirdness between us. But if we can be together, that would be the highlight of my life."  
  
Adrianne breathed a sigh of disappointment. "Oh, Jake, I'm so sorry. I have my eye on someone else. If it helps, though, I was thinking of it until about midnight last night." Jake was shocked. 'What happened then? That was when I dropped her off at- Oh my god!' Jake thought. 'She's falling in love with-'  
  
"I'm falling in love with Lloyd, the Void Dragoon. I know it sounds like a girlish fantasy, but I get the feeling that he loves me back, and I hope you'll understand."  
  
Needless to say, Jake was crushed, but Adrianne couldn't know. "Yeah, sure. I get it. I have something I have to do now. So bye." "Bye."  
  
*********************  
  
Jim was a little sad about the prom being cancelled. He automatically knew who the prom court was going to be. He was going to be king, Krissi was going to be queen, and the rest were going to be their friends who were just as popular. Krissi moved to the town more than three weeks ago, and fought her way up through the high school hierarchy pretty quickly.  
  
Most people liked Krissi well enough. 'Well, what wasn't to like?' Jim thought. Her adorable blonde curls, her deep sapphire eyes, her beautiful teeth, her perky personality, and her cutesy little smile made her seem more like an otherworldly being than a girl. She seemed to have been manufactured, not born. Jim just dismissed these thoughts as anxiety as he waited in front of 'Fanny's Nails' for Krissi.  
  
'Ben said she'd be here by now,' Jim thought. Then he saw it. It was like a giant mirror, reflecting the sun's rays. Only one person had hair that shiny. 'Krissi,' he thought, and began to work his magic.  
  
*******************  
  
Kate screamed as the larger-than-normal sword of the Void Dragoon sliced right through her light armor and made a small gash in her stomach. Kate growled and leaped out the window. Adrianne walked up to the victorious warrior.  
  
"That was an amazing victory. Would you mind telling me your name?" The Dragoon flashed a winning smile. "Why, Lloyd of course." Adrianne grabbed a knife and held it to his throat. "Look buddy, I don't know who the hell you are, but you're not the Void Dragoon I remember from last night. Now tell me who you really are!"  
  
"Look lady, I don't know who you think you are, but I'm the one with the giant sword, and you're the one with the butter knife, so you're in no position to make threats. What if I'm not the Void Dragoon? What then? Do you want to kiss me again? Come now, you're a waste of my time." He walked toward the window. "Go make out with someone else, you little harlot." Shocked, Adrianne dropped to her knees and cried as the Dragoon flew out the window.  
  
Rawlena put her arm around Adrianne. "There there, men are pigs. You can't expect much more from them. Kate's father was the same way. When we were married, he seemed different. I think he was only in it for the money. My money." It didn't help. "He was so charming last night," Adrianne sobbed. "I started to fall for him. I guess it really was just a girlish fantasy." Still sobbing, she picked up the phone. "I have a phone call to make."  
  
"Honey, I'm sorry, but you won't be making any phone calls for a long time," Rawlena said as Adrianne collapsed. "I have to take you somewhere safe. Somewhere where that horrible man from your past won't ever bother you again."  
  
*******************  
  
Jake was walking, well running really, down the street when he saw the wings of a Dragoon touch down beside him. "Jake, nothing would make me happier than to kill you right now to clear my name, but I can't do that. I have a job to do, a job for Wink." Caught between changing into a Dragoon and kicking some tail, and asking just who the hell Wink is, Jake simply stared.  
  
"I can get her back. But it will require the help of Dragoons. And you need to help me." Jake was suddenly defiant. "And what if I don't?" The man smiled and raised his hand. The town disappeared, and a new one, a dusty one, replaced it. There were baskets and shops full of interesting items, but the one that really caught Jake's eye was a young girl. She was bound and gagged, and she was very familiar.  
  
"Adrianne!" A woman stood next to her, and Jake recognized her as Rawlena Mueller. She stood up spoke.  
  
"I'm sure you're wondering where you are and why I have Adrianne here." Jake shook his head. "The thought had crossed my mind."  
  
Rawlena started to untie her prisoner. "First of all, let's start with whom. My real name is not Rawlena Mueller. My name is Rose. The man who brought you here is Lloyd. We, through no fault of our own, were slain in our original world. Now we have the ability to travel between worlds.  
  
"This brings me to the second question. Where. This town is called Lohan. It is the center of trade here in the world of Endiness. Endiness is falling apart. The Dragoons are dwindling. We have only the Blue Sea Dragoon and the Jade Dragoon. Unless you count us of course. The other Dragoon souls are trapped in the Castle of Shadows, where Eevano resides. Some, he has tricked into doing his dirty work, like poor Shana, or he simply keeps their souls in bottles colored to match their Dragoon Spirit.  
  
"That brings me to the third question. Why. I don't know how, but you're friend here possesses some kind of unlimited power within her. She may be the key to the doors of Eevano's castle. He still believes he loves her, and he will go to great lengths to get her back. She also may be the key to his undoing."  
  
Rawlena, or Rose, had already finished untying Adrianne. She stood up, and slapped Rose straight on the cheek. "I deserved more for what I did to you. And what Eevano did to you, friend of Adrianne. The Void Dragoon has much to discuss with our little princess here."  
  
And with that, the town disappeared. Jake and Adrianne were brought back to the street that Jake had originally found himself on. Adrianne turned to face him.  
  
"What the hell was that?"  
  
*******************  
  
Jim took Krissi on a walk through the park, followed by a romantic candlelight dinner, and finally, he took her to a small diner for desert. Afterward, he walked her home.  
  
"You didn't hafta do all that for me," Krissi said. Jimbo smiled. "But I wanted to. You really make me feel special." Krissi leaned in, and Jimbo leaned in. Ben and Jake watched from the bushes.  
  
"Here comes the part where he dumps her right on her sorry ass," Ben said. But he didn't. Jimbo took that kiss. Ben started banging his head on some hard surface. After Ben had a splitting headache, Jimbo had still not finished.  
  
"Jim, I love you, but we can't go beyond this doorway. I really just need some space right now. Bye!" And she slammed the door in his face. Jim had a look of intense pain and longing on his face, and he was definitely depressed.  
  
"Now, instead of us playing her, she played him like a violin," Ben sighed. "So, "It looks like the set-up back fired on us."  
  
***********************  
  
Jake looked at Adrianne, and she asked again. "What the hell was THAT!?" Jake walked around in a circle. "I have no idea. But I do know that I have to walk you home sometime-"  
  
"Are you a Dragoon?" Adrianne's words cut like a knife into Jake's heart. "W, what?" Jake stammered. "Are you a Dragoon?"  
  
"Well, uh, it's a complicated story that involves a long and detailed-"  
  
"I asked you a yes or no question. Are you a Dragoon or not? The queer rich lady said that you were, and now I'm asking you if you are." Jake stuttered a lot more before getting to the speech he should have said a long time ago.  
  
"I am a Dragoon and I probably should have told you sooner, Adrianne, because I can't keep stuff like this from you. I love you." Adrianne couldn't stand it anymore.  
  
"If you love me so much, why didn't you tell me? Is it because you're a great superhero, and you have to keep your identity secret? Even then, you could confide in me. You know that. We've only known each other for a couple days, but when you've found your soul mate you can just tell!" Her hands jumped to her mouth. Jake cocked his head.  
  
"Did you say... soul mate?"  
  
"Um, no I said soup fate. Yes, soup fate. It's this thing my tarot lady does with soup and cards and-"  
  
Jake put a finger to her mouth to silence her. And once again, knowing the risks, he changed into a Dragoon right in front of her house. Adrianne was so wrapped up in yelling at him that she had forgotten that they were walking. Once his change was complete, he looked into her eyes.  
  
"Kiss me again. And this time, no false pretenses," he said. Adrianne nodded even as her mouth came to meet his. Jake blissfully folded his wings around her again.  
  
***********************  
  
"Oh, this is too easy! Krissi, you've worked miracles!" Eevano cooed as Krissi walked through her door. Krissi smiled and dropped her coat on the floor.  
  
"Well, I figured Jim was susceptible to kisses just like everyone else. And besides, I needed to have a little fun!" She moved further to the throne Eevano was sitting on. "But, if you don't mind me saying so, you disapproved of the methods that won him over. Isn't that just a little hypocritical?"  
  
Eevano glared at her. "If you didn't amuse me so much, you'd have been dead a thousand times. But you do, more to your benefit than mine, and you amuse me. Do you see where I'm going with this? Of course not, you're a blonde," he said without giving her a chance to answer. "I only kept you alive because you're amusing, but you're pleasantness has dissolved. You've become a liability. Now you must go." With a flick of his wrist, Krissi flew out the window screaming.  
  
"All's far in love and war. And I don't believe in love."  
  
***********************  
  
It was a good thing that Jim had been waiting for Krissi by her back window, or he wouldn't have seen her fall out. Or heard her screams. Or been there to rescue her.  
  
She fell far, and Jim extended his arms to catch her just in time. She landed in his hands with a soft thump. Jim looked at her unconscious face. 'She's so pretty. I wish we could.. No point in thinking about it now.' And he walked out of her yard and brought her to a hospital.  
  
**********************  
  
Jake and Adrianne eventually pulled apart, but only after strenuous effort. Jake saw something in Adrianne's eyes. "Adrianne, get down!" he said just in time, as a Dragoon wing nearly sliced off her head.  
  
The Dragoon turned to face Jake. "I am the Doppleganger, and you are my next prey, Dragoon."  
  
***********************  
  
A/N: Why can't the bad guys just leave Jake alone!? Every time he and Adrianne try and get together, something interrupts them. Kinda reminds me of the best part in LoD. You know, the one at the twin castle where Dart and Shana are about to kiss three times and they keep getting interrupted? That game is like a god-send. Well, if anyone is still following this, keep reading! 


	6. Chapter 6: Of Visions and Demons

Amanda only realized that she was Becca's sister a couple years ago, when they met online on one of those dating sites that can also be used for finding friends. On her first day there, a blonde head walked through the door, and it changed Amanda's life forever.  
  
The blonde head belonged to Ben, and she knew she loved him the instant she saw him. But, she assumed that he was Becca's boyfriend, but her suspicions were proven wrong before the prom, and then correct right after.  
  
Becca came home in Ben's arms, and Ben was wearing some strange sort of red armor. There was a lot of talking, and then Ben leaned in for the kiss. Amanda turned away. She couldn't bear to see her Ben in the arms of her sister.  
  
'I can't stand this,' she thought tearfully. 'I can't stand this anymore.'  
  
"I'm taking a bath."  
  
***********************  
  
Doppelganger cackled wildly as his wickedly curved sword sliced through thin air as Jake and Adrianne ducked. Grabbing Adrianne rather roughly around the waist, he took flight into the air, and Doppelganger followed.  
  
"You can't get away from me, puny Dragoon!" The creature yelled as it swung its sword again.  
  
"Does this usually happen?" Adrianne yelled over the rush of air that flowed through the Dragoon's arched wings.  
  
"Every time," Jake replied. "It's an occupational hazard."  
  
Jake tried to shake him, but whenever Jake made a move, Doppelganger copied it exactly. He pulled Adrianne closer, and spurred away as Doppelganger followed.  
  
"Hang on, things are gonna get hairy."  
  
***********************  
  
The next morning, Amanda woke seeing the ceiling near her bookcase with splitting headache and a can of her father's beer in her hand. She had no idea how it got there, and she did not intend to find out.  
  
Throwing the can out the window into the garbage below, she walked painfully back to bed. She still couldn't remember what happened as her headache got worse.  
  
**********************  
  
"We've got a patient going into cardiac arrest!"  
  
"142, stat!"  
  
Jim was sitting alone in the hospital, nervously drumming his fingers on the women's health magazines to his left. Krissi was unconscious, lying on a hospital bed in the main infirmary. Jim took her to the hospital immediately after he caught her falling from her own window. He didn't know what was going on in her house, but if someone tried to kill Krissi, he intended to find out who and why.  
  
Jim's thoughts drifted aimlessly to Becca. What would she think if she knew he were here, waiting for Krissi instead of her. He really did think Becca was a good person, and he liked her a lot, but he just didn't love her yet. Things were too complicated between them.  
  
And what about Jake and Adrianne? They seem to have gotten together pretty quickly. What happened at the prom with the two of them? Are they officially a couple now? Jim's thoughts were all over the place, but mostly, they consisted of 'Is Krissi going to be alright?' He decided to take a walk to clear his head when a nurse came up to him.  
  
"You're friend is going to be okay, and we would like you to see her," she said as Jim followed her into Krissi's room. "It's a good thing you brought her in so early. I just have to ask though, why did she fall out of a window in the first place?"  
  
"That's what I intend to find out," said Jim as he walked in to visit her. Her blonde curls were messy, and she looked like she walked to hell and back. She probably did.  
  
"Hey," Jim said softly. She made a croaking sound in the back of her throat. "You can't say anything? That's alright. I just want to talk.  
  
"I fell for you when our mock date started. Yes, I know that this may come as a shock, but I was really waiting to sabotage you. Ben talked me into it. But as the date went on, I found myself feeling more like I was on a date than a seek-and-destroy mission. And when you kissed me, I don't know if that was fake or not, but if it was, you should be an actress, you're good at pretending. Because it felt real to me.  
  
"Jim," Krissi croaked. Another nurse entered with a clipboard in her hands.  
  
"Miss Krissi Manion. Patient number: 654738. Medical ailment: severe head injuries. Cause: fall."  
  
Jim watched the nurse as she continued to write about Krissi's bad condition. Suddenly, she stopped and looked at Jim.  
  
"Are you sure this was from a fall?" she asked, and Jim nodded. "And you caught her?" Another nod. "Well, she has some major brain damage. It was almost as if her entire brain was wiped clean. Its like," she paused. "Magic."  
  
*********************  
  
Narrowly dodging a sideswipe from Doppelganger for what seemed like the umpteenth time, Jake flew around a tall building in hopes of finding a way to get rid of this flying menace. Adrianne hadn't complained through the entire flight, and Jake assumed that she was safe in his arms.  
  
'Well Jake,' he thought. 'You know what they say about assuming.'  
  
Doppelganger pulled back and stopped, putting his hands in front of him. They began to glow, and a ball of energy formed where his sword used to be.  
  
"I will obliterate you and your friend, puny Dragoon," he growled in his throat as the energy ball grew bigger and bigger. Pulling his hands back, he suddenly thrust them forward again, giving the ball the force it needed to propel itself forward and head straight for Jake and Adrianne. Jake dodged out of the way just in time, but the orb apparently had a magical homing device installed within it. It followed him still.  
  
"Shi-" But that was all Jake could get out before the orb hit him and the two people plummeted to the ground unconscious.  
  
*************************  
  
Amber put the milk back in the fridge and sighed. The dream had come again, but this time, it was more vivid. She could actually see the blood flowing from Jake, Greg, and Ben's dead bodies. Adrianne held the crossbow higher, and her aim hitting the cloaked man was truer. She took the part of an impartial observer once again.  
  
Kelly walked down the stairs, and groaned as she saw her sister once again sitting at the table with a glass of milk at midnight. This was the sign of a particularly disturbing dream or vision.  
  
"What was it this time? Did Greggy Weggy die again?" she asked in a sing- songy voice. Amber put down her milk and sighed.  
  
"You know very well what I dreamt about Kel," Amber said, obviously frustrated. "Our minds are one. And you know as well as I do that we can't afford to have that made public."  
  
"God, could you tell me that a billion and one times?"  
  
"Well, you know Kel, you forget stuff sometimes. Like, for example, to not flirt with powerful men who have the power that could get us both killed."  
  
"You read too much into this Amber," Kelly said as she blushed slightly. "I was not flirting."  
  
"I heard what you thought, and that was defiantly flirting."  
  
"How would you know? You've never flirted with a guy in your life!" Kelly yelled back.  
  
Amber's mouth hung open for a while, and then she flipped Kelly off and went back to bed.  
  
"Good night!" Amber yelled as she slammed her door. Their parents were very sound sleepers, and they had a late night while the girls were at the prom.  
  
"Forget her," Kelly grumbled. "I'm going over to Becca's."  
  
***************************  
  
Ben walked back to the door to grab his shoes. Becca followed him. She had a smile plastered to her face, and a sock in her hand.  
  
"Take this. It's my sock. Since I don't have a handkerchief, you can put this on your armor instead. It marks you as my champion."  
  
Ben smiled. "Thanks. We should get together more often."  
  
"Yeah, we should."  
  
"Do you love me?"  
  
"Well, that'll just hafta stay a secret, now won't it?"  
  
Ben smiled, and started to walk away, and it was at that moment that Kelly appeared at Becca's doorstep. She watched Ben walk away.  
  
"Does he know his shirt is on inside out?" Kelly asked. Becca just smiled.  
  
"Probably."  
  
"O...... kay......," Kelly said, raising her eyebrows. She decided not to ask anything more about the subject.  
  
"Hey, why are you here Kelly?" Becca's sister Amanda had just woken up and came over to the door to greet her.  
  
"You know, I had a boyfriend once in my old school," she said. "Yeah, I did. He was so sexy, but I had to break up with him 'cuz he was a dork."  
  
Kelly noticed that Amanda's speech was a little. "Have you been drinking?"  
  
"Mebbe a little," Amanda said as she tripped over the steps and passed out. Kelly gave Becca a worried look, but all Becca could do was smile.  
  
"I'll take her inside, Becca," Kelly said as she dragged Amanda's unconscious form in the house as Becca stared at the sunset and sighed.  
  
*********************  
  
Ben touched down in his bedroom after flying back from Becca's house. He knew he had a thousand-word paper due tomorrow, but he didn't care. Becca loved him. For once in his life, everything was right in the world. He felt as if he were walking on air.  
  
Becca had opened his eyes. He could now see. The lonely burden of a Dragoon had been lifted. Now that someone else knew his secret, he felt so much better about his job. Before, nothing would've made him happier than a simple "Thank you" from anyone for saving all those people. But his exploits had gone unnoticed, unappreciated. Now, there was someone who cared, someone who he could count on for recognition toward his selfless acts of bravery.  
  
He went to check the messages on his phone.  
  
"Hello? Ben? This is Becca-" He deleted the message.  
  
"Ben, Becca again-" Again, deleted.  
  
"Ben, dammit, get over here! I need your help-" He deleted it without realizing that it was Jake, who was, at the moment, fending off Doppelganger with a very frightened Adrianne in his arms. He went on, blissfully deleting other mildly important messages without even knowing it.  
  
*************************  
  
Even thought a faculty meeting had given the students a three-day-weekend, Amber was restless. She hadn't slept more than an hour all night. The dream had kept her awake.  
  
Her thoughts somehow wandered to Greg. What was it that they were fighting about again? And will they make it through? They had been good friends before, in kindergarten, but that was before Greg had secretly kissed her behind the trees during playtime. It distracted Amber a year later, on the efficiency test in first grade. Even now, over ten years later, it still nagged at her heart. Maybe it wasn't hate she was feeling. Maybe it was-  
  
"Amber! I told you to clean up the garage sometime this spring!" Amber rolled her eyes and yelled an incomprehensible reply down to her mother.  
  
'We still have a good month left of spring,' she thought, and all reflection on the delicate relationship she had with Greg evaporated.  
  
After she finished cleaning the garage, which took several hours, her mother called for her again.  
  
"Honey, Greg is here to see you!"  
  
Amber groaned. 'What could Greg possibly have to discuss with me?' Amber thought absent-mindedly as she opened her door. Dark eyes, dark hair, very tall. 'Yup, its Greg all right.'  
  
"Amber I hafta talk to you," he said. "I got something really important to say, and I-"  
  
"Just go away," Amber shouted with tears in her eyes. "I never want to see you again."  
  
"Now look, Amber," Greg continued as Mrs. Milton left to pick up her husband from the airport. She didn't want to be caught during this fight.  
  
"Finally," Amber said as she pulled Greg close and kissed him. "I thought she'd never leave."  
  
*************************  
  
Alex's mouth dropped open. Did what he just saw really happen? Do Greg and Amber have a secret relationship that no one knows about? To think of Greg's tongue in Amber's mouth just grossed him out. So he knocked on the door. Through the window, he could see Amber jump off of Greg, and go to the door while he hid.  
  
"Hi, I've come to see Greg," Alex said softly.  
  
"He's not here, I'm alone. Thank you, bye," Amber replied rapidly, and quickly shutting the door.  
  
"I saw you two through the window."  
  
The door slowly opened again. "How much did you see?"  
  
"Only a little."  
  
"Why were you here in the first place?"  
  
"Greg told me to show up here ASAP. He said it was urgent."  
  
"And it is urgent man," Greg said as he appeared from the closet. "I need you to forget what you saw. Got it?"  
  
"Got it." And with that, Alex walked out the door and told ten different people about what he just saw.  
  
"Man, now the whole school is gonna know," Greg whined as Amber sat next to him on the couch.  
  
"Maybe we can turn that to our advantage," Amber whispered in his ear.  
  
"And how do you propose we do that?" Greg asked. Amber just smiled and kissed him again.  
  
"I'll find a way."  
  
****************************  
  
Ben was thinking back to the messages he deleted. 'I think there was one that I should have kept,' he thought, but shrugged it off. The phone rang again.  
  
"Hey Ben," said Becca in a cutesy voice. He picked up the phone and answered her.  
  
"Hey Becca," he answered. "How about we get together again sometime. That sound like fun, doesn't it?"  
  
Becca laughed. "The effects of your charm wore off. I am now thinking with a clear mind."  
  
"Even now?"  
  
"Even now." A voice started to sound in Becca's head.  
  
"Vdrash Kadarak."  
  
She shook her head. "So, how ya been since I last saw you?"  
  
"Considering it was only a couple of minutes ago......" Becca stopped hearing his voice when the other one resurfaced in her head.  
  
"Vdrash Kadarak," it whispered. "Vdrash Kadarak Becca, Intu Yvesse Ichoren."  
  
"Darkness falls, Darkness falls Becca, into your life," was the translation she heard somewhere in the back of her mind.  
  
"Hroren ker Vdrash, Becca, Hroren ker Vdrash," it said. "Absorb the Darkness, Becca, absorb the Darkness."  
  
"Renin ker Vdrash intu ursna cadrio Becca, intu ursna cadrio." "Take the Darkness into your heart Becca, into your heart."  
  
"Vdrash!"  
  
Becca's head snapped backwards as if she were being pulled in the opposite direction by a very long rope. She collapsed on the ground, and heard one last word before she passed out.  
  
"Vdrash."  
  
***************************  
  
Eevano's body flowed with pain as Becca's screams entered his head.  
  
"No, no, not Rose," he croaked. "ROSE!"  
  
"Not the original Dragoons again," the cloaked woman said. Eevano growled a monotonous response. "You still have the two dead ones and the two living ones to catch. Four brother."  
  
"I know sister. I have yet to catch the Blue Sea Dragoon and the Jade Dragoon. I must focus on the task of collecting the Spirits of the new Dragoons first. I believe the Endiness Dragoons are your responsibility sister."  
  
"You are mistaken brother. Father has just sent us a new order to switch jobs. I will take out the new Dragoons, and you will bring ruin to the Endiness ones. There are only two left, and they are the two weakest. Do you think you can handle them alone?"  
  
Eevano grumbled. "You jest sister. I know I can handle them on my own. They are but two, and I have one of my agents on them right now."  
  
"You mean your imps?" she cooed. "Those buffoons couldn't even handle one Dragoon, much less two. My servant Doppelganger has already brought down their fledgling leader, and his companion, a potential Dragoon. Hidden in that girl is enough power to control the entire cosmos and beyond. You know of what I speak.  
  
"The boundless power of the Great Dragoon. She may be the Chosen One we have been searching for. Adrianne will fall into our hands by mine, and she will feel the wrath of the Fhrama family!"  
  
*************************  
  
As Jake fell, random thoughts entered his mind. His family, his friends, his Adrianne. He closed his eyes as the street below grew closer and closer. He waited for the sweet release of death to take him.  
  
Then, a pair of strong arms grabbed him, and slowed his descent. Opening his eyes, he heard a snide remark through the rising gloom of the dawn.  
  
"So, you started the party without me, huh?"  
  
"Dart!" Jake yelled. He put Adrianne safely on the ground.  
  
"Adrianne, go hide somewhere safe. Better yet, take a cab back home. Doppelthingy will stop chasing you."  
  
Adrianne looked at him with concern. "I love you Lloyd."  
  
"I love you too Adrianne." He kissed her one last time, and she ran in the opposite direction.  
  
"Ha! Love. I don't believe in it," Doppelganger cackled. "Now, you will see the true power of my mistress, and she will crush you all like little bugs!"  
  
"You'd better take that back Doppelganger!" Jake yelled, brandishing his sword. "I don't hafta be careful of a person in my arms this time, so I won't focus solely on evasion."  
  
"Touching speech, but it's not you I'm after, I have a much bigger fish to fry," Doppelganger said, and flew in Adrianne's direction.  
  
Jake and Ben flew up to block him. "Ah, ah, ah, Doppelganger," Jake taunted. "If you want to get to Adrianne, you'll hafta go through us first."  
  
"With pleasure," Doppelganger hissed as he started to transform into a giant winged creature with long, sharp fangs. His height grew considerably, and he sprouted enormous wings the size of bus stations. He grew until he was taller than the houses he had landed near. "Killing you will be a treat."  
  
***********************  
  
A/N: Jake and Ben are in a pickle, now aren't they? And why is Becca hearing voices? And the most important question: Why can't Adrianne save herself once in a while. These and more will probably be answered in further chapters of Quest of the Dragoons. 


	7. Chapter 7: Jade and Dark Dragoon

Doppelganger brought his new weapon, a giant fist, down on the Dragoons. Ben dodged to the side, and Jake jumped forward. Both boys took flight. Ben substituted his normal small yet powerful handgun, which had the blasting might of an enormous shotgun, for a sub-machine gun. He blasted away at Doppelganger's enormous form, but the blows did little damage to the giant behemoth. Whatever magical powers were protecting this thing, they were strong.   
  
"Jake, let's hit him with a pincer movement! You hit him from the right, and I'll hit him from the left!" Ben yelled as Jake flew toward the right side of the monster.   
  
"FLAME SHOT!" Ben yelled.  
  
"DIVINE DRAGON CANNON!" Jake shouted. The two mighty spells hit their foe. The spells hit their marks, but did not do as much damage as their casters expected. A small mark, about the size that Jake imagined a paper cut would look on this enormous fiend, was all the damage they did to it.   
  
They tried again, this time their attacks merging to inflict maximum damage. A fiery blast of green energy caught the beast right in the chest. It smiled.  
  
"You'll need to do more than that to take down The Great Behemoth."  
  
*************************  
  
"Vdrash. Call me Rose. I am here to help you. Your friends are in trouble. Look in your top dresser drawer."  
  
Becca, head pounding, walked over to her dresser and opened the top drawer. A black stone was sitting on her clothes, and she picked it up. It glowed in her hands, and she heard the voice again.  
  
"Good. Now go save your friends."  
  
Becca looked out of her second floor window and decided to test her newfound power. She held the stone in her hand, and threw herself out the window. The power took effect immediately. Delicate wings appeared, and she steered herself up above the treetops, her blonde hair blowing in the wind.   
  
"It's time to save your friends. You're the only one who can."  
  
*******************************  
  
The cloaked woman screamed. "Uyoin," she swore in the Old Tongue. "Every time we get close to catching a potential Dragoon, that uyoin Rose gets to them first. Or Lloyd, but they are both uyoin tyorns!" she said again, swearing in the Old Tongue.   
  
"Well, well, well Mistress, it looks like we hit the jackpot," came a voice from the shadows.  
  
"Have you found the man I asked you to?"  
  
The speaker stepped forward from the shadows with a blonde man in handcuffs next to her. Her red hair flashed as she tossed it.  
  
"Of course. I'm not incompetent like your brother's henchmen."   
  
"Let me go you tyorn!" The man yelled at her, trying to pull away. She stared at him, and he became slowly limp. The girl put her head back towards her Mistress.  
  
"He will not bother us for a long time," she said, hoping it wasn't a lie. The man collapsed on the floor, and as he did, a green stone fell out of his pocket. It glowed with a Jade light.  
  
****************************  
  
"Krissi?" Jimbo sat down next to her after getting a quick drink of water. She made a small croaking sound to acknowledge that she'd heard him. "I got you some water."   
  
"You have been in her room for the whole night straight and then some," the nurse said. "Why don't you go home?"   
  
"I can't go back until I get revenge for her. I love her."  
  
The nurse just stared at Jim, and then walked out of Krissi's room. Jim picked up her hand, and she smiled. She leaned back again to go to sleep.  
  
Then her eyes snapped open again. Her entire body convulsed, as if she were having a spasm.   
  
"No, no, NO!" Krissi yelled at nothing. Jim held her down though she continued to twitch.   
  
"Krissi, Krissi sh, it's okay now. I'm here now, you don't have to worry. Sh, you're gonna be okay," he said trying to sooth her. It worked. She screamed one last earsplitting yelp, and collapsed on her hospital bed, drenched in sweat. Jim wrapped his arms around her waist.   
  
"It's going to be okay."  
  
***************************  
  
Becca flew faster, hoping beyond hope that she wasn't too late.   
  
'I hafta save Ben,' she thought. Right now, nothing else mattered. She realized that she loved him a long time ago, and she was sure that he had the same idea.  
  
***************************  
  
Ben was in a lot of pain. Doppelganger had hit him in straight in the chest so many times. He fell onto a rooftop and tried to sit up, but it was too agonizing. With a cry of excruciating pain, he fell to the ground again.   
  
This was how Becca found him. Staring with rage at his adversary, she brandished her dark halberd and stood with a burning flame in her eyes.   
  
"Astral Drain!" shouted Becca as her halberd flew up and stabbed Doppelganger in the creature's oversized head. Strong and ancient magic flowed from the weapon as it sucked life from the gargantuan behemoth. She felt herself being healed of what small wounds she had accumulated from her previous encounter with a servant of evil.   
  
She saw Ben sit up, holding his head, but apparently now unscathed. She had done more damage to it then both Ben and Jake combined.   
  
Doppelganger roared, and changed into a redheaded human female. Somehow, it flew up towards the Dragoons.  
  
"This body is strong, stronger than my last," it said. "It will destroy you all!"  
  
*******************************  
  
Jim was still calming Krissi down when she began to talk again.   
  
"Thunder and lightning, Jim, thunder and lightning!" she yelled at him. Not quite understanding what this meant, he just pulled her closer to him.   
  
"Yiru oitn oures Jim, yiru oitn oures! JIM!" She started to go into convulsive movements and she screamed at the top of her lungs.   
  
"Please leave sir," said the nurses who ran to her side within a few minutes. "The doctor requests only family should be here."  
  
So Jim left for Krissi's house to find the answer to the mystery as to why Krissi fell out of the window in the first place.   
  
******************************  
  
"UYOIN!" Eevano swore in the Old Tounge again. "That foolish Wingly escaped again. She is the only Dragoon left living."  
  
"Master, whatever you have planned, it will work, just give it time," said the wounded Kate from the shadows. She was tending to the cut that Doppelganger had given her in Adrianne's hospital room.   
  
"Miss Mueller, I strongly advise you to not speak to someone in a higher position than you beyond 'Yes sir,' " Eevano said. "Are we understood?"  
  
Kate nodded. "Yes sir." She stood, and with great effort, walked to her assigned quarters in Eevano's castle.   
  
"Foolish girl," Eevano said. "She thinks I don't realize she'd betray me when it suits her."  
  
"It would be wise not to underestimate the abilities of your followers, brother," a figure in the darkness said. "They may betray you because you will betray them."  
  
"Leave my subjects out of this sister," Eevano replied. "They are nothing to you."  
  
"Indeed they are not," she scoffed. "For Emma and Doppelganger are more than a match for your pathetic girly girls. Do you realize that the only way you beat the other Dragoons was luck? And help from Father of course. He did most of the work, weakening them for you. And of course there were the two that escaped."  
  
"Sister, I can handle this on my own!" Eevano roared.   
  
"Suit yourself," she said as she shrugged nonchalantly. "It was only a suggestion." She tore open a rift in space and walked through it, like she had used to make her escape so many times before.   
  
"I await your answer for Mother, Eevano," she said as she left. "She is busy locating our aunt, but she can help if you have need of it."  
  
"Tell Mother I have no need of her the kind of help she gives," Eevano growled. "She will be the doom of us all."  
  
The woman shrugged. "Alright, I will relay that message to Mother. But you do realize," she said. "That this will mean you are completely on your own, don't you?"  
  
"Of course sister," Eevano growled. "Now get out of my sight."  
  
The woman left. Eevano turned back to his work. "This will surely capture the Blue Sea Dragoon," he said to himself as he turned it on.   
  
*******************************  
  
Amber awoke once again in cold sweat. The dream was so vivid this time. She was standing on a platform, and Greg was talking about her life. There were tears in his eyes, and he held a blue stone in his hand. It glowed when she looked at it. It drew her gaze closer and closer, and without knowing it, she was face to face with Greg  
  
Suddenly, she felt a pain more excruciating than any she'd previously known. Crying out in fear as well as hurt, she had sat up in bed and seen her parents in her room. She had told them it was only a bad dream. Greg was the only person she could tell this strange dream to.   
  
"Greg? Hi, it's Amber. No, no, the phone line isn't being tapped. How do you think I know? What? Okay, well I had a weird dream that I think I died in. Yes, you were in it too. No, I don't think you died. Greg, you're making too little of this. There was a blue stone, and it drew my attention, but then I died. Okay, sorry to bother you, you bastard."  
  
She hung up on him and threw the phone at the wall. It shattered when the blow connected. Sighing with contempt at wasting a perfectly good phone, she went back to bed.  
  
****************************  
  
Adrianne ran away from Doppelganger in his Dragoon form before the second battle even started. Ending up on a street adjacent to her house, Adrianne finally stopped running and cut through a neighbor's yard so as not to be seen.   
  
"Whatever you tried, it didn't work," drifted a female voice from the shadows. "I still followed you."  
  
Adrianne's head snapped around. "Who's there?"   
  
"Why Adrianne, I'm surprised you didn't remember me," the voice said. It came from the shadows again. Adrianne turned around. "Come now, Adrianne, you and Becca should know me by now."  
  
'Oh my god,' Adrianne thought. 'Becca.' She started to run to Becca's house, but the figure stopped her.  
  
"Ah, ah Adrianne, I want you to come with me," she said as she grabbed her by the arm.   
  
"Help! I'm being kidnapped!" Adrianne yelled, but to no avail. "Someone!" Then she lost consciousness.  
  
******************************  
  
"Ben!" Becca was fighting what Doppelganger had become now. None of his earlier forms had had strength of this magnitude. Of course Becca had not expected it to be easy, but she had at least expected to win. Ben had already gone over to take out the redhead from the side, but it seemed that Doppelganger was too powerful for their control. Ben and Jake were panting, having not gone through battle before, but the spirit of Rose had already entered Becca's mind, and she was a veteran of many battles, so Becca was not tired in the least.   
  
Doppelganger laughed. "How could you filthy, pathetic humans possibly have any hope of defeating one who has lived for centuries!" Flying up to Jake, he looked into Jake's eyes, and Jake started to become weary.   
  
"Can't..... keep........ going......." he said as he collapsed to the roof of the building. Seeing that Doppelganger was distracted, Becca threw her halberd once again at Doppelganger, and it hit the creature's redheaded form right in the chest. It started to reform into some other monstrosity when Jake heard a voice in his head.  
  
"Hit it," said the voice. "Hit it while it's changing." So Jake raised his cannon arm, and cast his most powerful Dragoon magic.  
  
"DIVINE DRAGON CANNON!"   
  
The beam of energy hit Doppelganger with explosive force. With a terrible scream, it fell to the ground dozens of feet below in a blazing inferno.  
  
*******************************  
  
"I'm telling you, I don't know anything!" Adrianne shouted between blows.   
  
"Frailty," a man said as he struck her across the face. She shrunk backwards and fell on her side. "Thy name," he struck her again. "Is woman." The final kick came now. It hit her with such force that she was knocked against an adjacent wall.   
  
"That Hamlet sure knew his stuff," Adrianne quipped as she tried in vain to stand.   
  
"Come on Adrianne," the villain said. "I thought you'd at least fight back." He went over and picked her up by the collar of her shirt. Her feet dangled above the floor. "I'll ask you one last time, who is the Void Dragoon?"  
  
Shivering, Adrianne pulled her head back and spit blood in his face.   
  
"I'll take that as a no," the man said, wiping off the bloody saliva from his face. "Then I'll just have to kill you." He put his hand to his waist to draw a small knife. "This knife will kill you slowly, taking hours of pain before death finally comes. Do you know what that means? You'll never see your precious Dragoon again!"  
  
"ORINAS!" Eevano thundered, causing the whole hall to shake. Orinas dropped his prisoner. "YOU WILL NOT HARM ADRIANNE!"  
  
"I could have handled it," Adrianne swallowed. "Without your help."  
  
"Of course you could dear," Eevano said calmly.  
  
"Don't patronize me Evan," Adrianne croaked. "I remember that was one of the reasons for your death."  
  
"Ah, so you know the truth."  
  
"Oh course I know the truth," Adrianne said. "I was an eyewitness."  
  
"Well, when that dark spirit attacked you, I jumped in the way, and it mutilated my body, giving you enough time to run away. I believe it was going after you because you are the Great Dragoon. I believe you know of what I speak. "  
  
"Like hell I do," Adrianne replied. "This is more confusing than a Star Wars movie from the 70's."  
  
"Defiant to the end," Eevano sneered. "Just as I remember you." He inched closer to her and put his hand on her swollen cheek. "I was hoping, perhaps, that we could come to," his hand moved to her back. "An agreement."   
  
Adrianne slapped him across the face, and his hand rose to strike her, but he stopped.  
  
"No," he said. "No, I won't hurt you. Damn this host of mine," he swore. "He always takes over when you're around."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"You think I'm Eevano, don't you?" Eevano asked, and Adrianne nodded. "Well, that is only half-true. Half of me is Evan. The other half is the vengeful spirit who was willing to take over you, and not Evan, that day in the forest near your home in San Francisco. It is the spirit that is in control. Save me Adrianne!"   
  
Eevano was going through a battle inside himself at this moment. He dropped to the floor and writhed in pain. His servant Orinas ran to his side. Reaching out his hand, he healed Eevano's spiritual wounds with some kind of otherworldly magic. Eevano stood again.  
  
"This is why I keep him," Eevano said. "That, and Krissi and Kate have both failed me on more occasions than I care to remember." Eevano turned to Orinas. "Not that Orinas hasn't, but Krissi has been punished already, and Kate's punishment will come for losing you to Rose."  
  
"The only reason Rawlena was able to kidnap me was because Lloyd drove Kate off," Adrianne said. Eevano looked sick.   
  
"So, my sister is involved in this as well," he said with a look of deep thought in his eyes.   
  
"What's going on? Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on!?" Adrianne yelled at the top of her lungs, which was not very loud because she had screamed a lot when Orinas was torturing her. As a result, she had lost her voice.  
  
"His sister is trying to sabotage his attempt to get all of the Endiness Dragoons. Kate was trying to kidnap you when her servant Doppelganger drove her off.   
  
"So Jake really does love me, and he will come to rescue me," she said.   
  
*********************  
  
Doppelganger rose, but this time, it's form was a wisp of black cloud. It was considerably weaker in this form.  
  
"You've discovered my secret, but how, I do not know. There is only one who knows, and he is dead."  
  
"Lloyd. He must have told me how to beat him," Jake said to himself.  
  
"Lloyd?" Becca asked. "Who's Lloyd?"  
  
"Lloyd is the original Void Dragoon. He and Rose kidnapped Adrianne to try and keep her from Eevano, but I'm guessing the location they brought her to was not secure enough. So they left her with-" Jake's face turned white. "They left her with me."  
  
The Dragoons took flight, and left the extremely annoyed Doppelganger screaming for a rematch.  
  
"Come back!"  
  
*****************************  
  
Lloyd flew over the Castle of Death, as it was known by as one of it's names. In his hands, he held the Jade Dragoon Spirit, and with it came the soul of Albert. Albert was the Endiness Jade Dragoon. In hot pursuit was Mottom, one of Eevano's imps.   
  
Greg was walking home from Amber's house when he saw the two opponents flying over Krissi Manion's house. Mottom sliced Lloyd above the shoulder, and he landed in front of Greg.  
  
"Take this," Lloyd said as he handed Greg the Dragoon Spirit. "It will be safer with the Dragoons. Find them, and give them this."  
  
The stone glowed dully in Lloyd's hands, but as soon as it passed to Greg, it glowed with a bright light. Jade armor appeared on him. A green spear appeared in his arms, and he turned to the blood-colored servant of darkness.   
  
"Wing Blaster!" A jade-colored bird appeared and crashed into the imp.   
  
"Are you okay?" Greg asked Lloyd as he tried to stand. The imp stood again, but before he could make a move, Greg hit him with his spear. The metal part went right through the creature's chest, skewering him. Mottom dropped dead on the sidewalk.  
  
"You have saved my life this day, Jade Dragoon," Lloyd said, standing.   
  
"Don't mention it," Greg said, helping him up.  
  
"And as for your reward, I think the Dragoon choosing you is reward enough. Now, your friends should be over near Adrianne's house. Find them. I must leave you now, for I also have a Wingly to save. And I must rescue Wink. Farewell, for this day, you have earned the trust of the Winglies."  
  
*****************************  
  
Jake, Ben and Becca found the street lot near Adrianne's home empty. They assumed the worst.  
  
"What if she got captured?" Jake asked. "What if Eevano has her in his horrible palace right now?"  
  
"Jake, you're overreacting," Becca said. "For all you know, she could be late."  
  
Greg touched down next to them. "Eevano has Adrianne."  
  
*************************  
  
A/N: Eevano has Adrianne!? What a surprise. She's gotta be rescued again. Seriously, I didn't mean for her to be such a Mary-Sue. My girls are usually more Kate-like. They kick boo-teh! But something happened to Adrianne. I'll change her.   
  
More singing, more kissing, and more Adrianne abuse in the next chapter! 


	8. Chapter 8: White Silver Dragoon

It was with heavy hearts that the Dragoons flew towards Eevano's castle. Trying to lighten the mood, Becca stopped in midair.

"If we save Adrianne, we can go back home right?" The others shook their heads. As they flew, a figure appeared in the air. It was a Wingly.

"Dragoons, I have a favor to ask. My world has fallen under the tyranny of the Fhrama's servants. They are too cowardly to take over Endiness by themselves. They, as individuals, are very weak, but if you can get past their power, they fall easily. My colleagues and I have them all but defeated. They are never far from one or two of their flunkies. This is why you should be prepared for the worst. Lloyd! Rose!"

Lloyd and Rose appeared, and with a flourish of smoke and mirrors, they flew up to their respective Dragoon partners.

"Let us help you, we can save you and your friend," they chorused in unison. Jake and Becca nodded, and the spirits entered them. It was the most amazing feeling, like a rush of knowledge and power all at once. Jake opened his eyes and looked at Becca. They both smiled. 

"Isn't that amazing?" Jake said, and Becca nodded speechlessly. 

"Alright, let's go. Dragoons can open up rifts in space when trained properly." She stretched out her arm and the sky started to tear, and the fabric on the other side was a small fortress. It was cold, and it snowed relentlessly. 

"This is Fort Magrad. It was the last stand of the humans during the Dragon Campaign, and it is our last hope now. Ironic, isn't it? We, that is, those remaining in Endiness, are prepared to fight the Fhramas and their servants to the end. This is where they were last defeated, and this is where we will defeat them again, with your help of course. 

"This place is a natural fortress against them because they cannot stand snow. I fear, however, that they are being trained for snow combat, and this is our last chance. Will you help us?"

The Dragoons nodded, and they flew through the small hole in the sky to meet their destinies. And the enemy. 

************************************

"Sing for me, my caged songbird.

Adrianne coughed again. For some reason, Orinas refused to heal her. 

'Probably because he wants me dead,' she thought, and coughed again. She held a bloody handkerchief in her hands. Most of the blood was from her hands, but some was from when she coughed up blood into it. In the corner were two other similar hankies from her earlier beating. Eevano, however, was oblivious to her beatings.

"Have you ever been in love?"

"NO! Any song but that one," Eevano yelled. "Orinas!"

"Yes Master?"

"Take Adrianne to the shower." Eevano left.

"Come on you, time for your shower," Orinas spat at her. "If Master Eevano didn't require it, I would kill you right where you stand."

"Lucky me," Adrianne coughed. "I get to shower in front of a psycho who wants to kill me."

Orinas roughly grabbed her arm and yanked her toward a small shower head with a curtain in front of it. Adrianne stepped inside and threw her clothes out over the top after she removed them. 

Turning the handle with an 'H' on it, she felt the hot water start to run down her bloody body. The water turned red with the blood that flowed off her scarred form, and she finally washed her hair for the first time in what felt like days, and probably was. Trapped up in a floating castle that was always dark, Adrianne had no sense of time. Red water ran off her body and down the drain. Her body, though riddled with bruises and scars was now clean and steaming. Grabbing a towel, she dried herself off and Orinas handed her a new robe. 

"Now back to your cage," he snarled. "Get in there." Shoving her in and locking the door, he walked back to his Master. Adrianne was finally clean, so she didn't complain. 

"I am truly sorry that Orinas is so cruel." Adrianne turned around to find the origin of the voice. It was a redheaded girl, and her mouth didn't move when she talked. It was as if-

"Yes, Adrianne, I am speaking to you through your mind. My psychic powers have developed greatly since I was small. My Mistress wants to help you. You need not be afraid of me, for I will not harm you. I promise."

For some reason, Adrianne felt she could trust this stranger. "Okay. I'll go if you can get me out of this cage. 

"That won't be a problem."

***********************************

"So, Emma, this is the Adrianne that my brother is so obsessed with," a woman in the shadows said.

"Who are you?" Adrianne asked. 

"My name is Kryusa Fhrama, and my brother Eevano is my ultimate rival. The Dragoons have torn us apart from birth. Our father Melbu had weakened them, and we gathered most of the rest. This right here," she said as a nearby wall opened up. "is where we keep the Dragoons we captured."

It was the most horrible sight Adrianne had ever seen. A blonde man in red armor hung in one canister, a sword hanging at his side. Another face was also blonde, but this time, the face was that of a woman. She had a white outfit on, with small leather shoulder pads. A bow hung in her hands, with an arrow still knocked. Her gem was exactly identical to Jake's, except hers was white.

The third face was a third blonde, but this time, another man. He looked more like a scholar than a warrior. At his side hung a spear, and his hair was longer than most. He had no gem. Lastly came an old man with dark hair. He wore a purple outfit and had no weapon. His gem was purple. 

"I know what you're thinking," Emma said. "But we saved these people from Eevano. He was going to destroy their souls with one of the Seven Treasures."

"The Seven Treasures," Kryusa continued for Emma. "are seven items of great magical power. They were handed down from generation to generation until the Dragon Campaign when they were all but lost from the world. 

"One Treasure is called the Soul Mate Mirror. It would automatically show you the face of whoever you were meant to be with. It's extraordinary magic would see into the future and show you the face of your soul mate. 

"A second Treasure is Necklace of Life. It can bring back any soul, no matter how far gone. Even from the brink of death can the magic of the Necklace be utilized. It's immense magical energies, however, can only work a select number of times.

"Another one of the Treasures is the Dragon Statue. It can call forth a creature of immense strength to destroy your enemies. It, unlike the other two previously mentioned, is one of the evil treasures. It holds the potential to destroy whole civilizations with a single attack.

"Another of the evil Treasures is the Cursed Armor. It looks like normal armor, but closer inspection reveals its true, evil intentions. It drains the soul of whoever is wearing it. It's distinguishing characteristic is the large symbol on the chest plate. It is the shape of the Grim Reaper's scythe. 

"The final evil Treasure is the Gem of Fire. It reflects the fire in a person's soul, and ass we all know, fire is an ancient symbol of evil. A person can only use it with an intent to kill. What little we know about it comes from a very old text called the Toure du Madj. It feeds off of your inner evil, and nothing is more frightening than what you can't see. 

"The final good Treasure is the Rainbow Dragoon Spirit. No one knows what it looks like, and no one knows where it is. Its powers are completely unknown, except that it makes you a Dragoon."

"You said that there were seven Treasures. I count three good and three evil. Which is the seventh?" Adrianne asked.

"The seventh is neither good nor evil. The seventh Treasure is the Greatsword, the Double Blade, and The Light and The Dark are just a few of it's names. It is mostly called by its original name, which the human tongue cannot pronounce. 

"It has two sides of its blades. One is blacker than the darkest night. It has the power to shred a soul to the point of breaking. The other side is a blinding white. It can heal any wound instantaneously. That one sword is the ultimate torture. If one is stabbed by it-"

"Their soul is torn apart, then healed, then torn, then healed, and the cycle repeats for all time," Adrianne said. Kryusa nodded. "So where are these Treasures now?

Kryusa sighed. "I have the Statue and the Necklace, but my brother has the Mirror and the Greatsword. No one knows where the other Treasures are."

"I've been trying to find the Armor and the Ring for twelve years now," Emma chimed in. "I searched ever corner of the globe, and that's how I found the four Treasures we currently posses. My Mistress's brother stole the Mirror and the Sword right out from under our noses."

"Oh," said Adrianne. "But Doppelganger is under your control, correct? Then why did he attack us?" 

"He was never intended to harm you, he got out of control. Your Dragoon friends were rash, and they attacked without warning." 

"Oh," Adrianne said again, still not fully understanding. "I still don't understand but okay." 

A horn sounded. "The battle for Endiness has begun."

*******************************

Jake and Becca raised their weapons and flew into the ranks of the enemy. The enemy consisted of legions of dark, soulless ex-humans who were turned into minions of evil by some dark spell, or so Jake guessed. 

"Don't let your guard down," said the blue Dragoon. "These new kind of beings are pure, undiluted evil. 

"I didn't think the great Meru was capable of using such big words," Jake remarked.

"So now you know," the blue Dragoon sighed. "Yes, I am Meru, the Blue Sea Dragoon. Better you find out now than in the heat of battle and it distracting you. We must drive the Fhramas from our fair land!" Meru encouraged her troops, which consisted of mostly rag-tag humans and four Dragoons. 

Jake raised his sword and cut off the arm of one of the soulless warriors. The creature cried and ran off. Meru smashed her hammer into the front of their ranks. Two more creatures flew with each stroke. 

"Withdraw!" Meru yelled, and her troops backed up as the sunken eyes of the enemy were focused on them. Becca took out at least eight with a few strokes of her giant halberd. Ben was going crazy with his sub-machine gun, he took down at least ten in a few seconds. Greg wasn't faring quite as well, with only one or two every fifteen seconds. His spear was weak and slow, being more the weapon to be used by scholars than warriors. 

Jake fired his Divine Dragon Ball, and very few of the enemy survived. 

"DIVINE DRAGON CANNON!"

"EXPLOSION!"

"WING BLASTER!"

"DIAMOND DUST!"

The four spells connected into one highly concentrated beam of energy at the remaining enemies. It took out all but three. The remaining three charged Meru, but her deadly hammer took care of them. She swung her hammer in an arc to the left, and one fell. The other fell to a right swing, and the final one fell to the return swing. 

"Do not rejoice," Meru said. "For this is only the first battle. They will be back."

Just as she said those words, a new wave of ghoulish creatures slunk toward Meru's little fortress. Sure enough, the second attack had begun.

************************

"I still don't understand why we have to fight these people," Adrianne said.

"I told you," Kryusa explained for the third time. "They have one of the Treasures. They may have the Rainbow Dragoon Spirit. These primitive people cannot stand against us, so they might as well surrender."

"I don't understand," Adrianne yelled. "You would sentence an entire planet, no, an entire world to death just for a small jewel."

"IT IS MORE THAN A SMALL BAUBLE!" Kryusa roared, and the air around her fizzled into a flame. "I DO NOT TAKE ORDERS FROM WEAKLING HUMANS!"

"I AM NO WEAKLING!" Adrianne yelled. "I would rather rot in HELL than see you destroy all these people!" 

The section of the castle that held the prisoners glowed a blinding white. Adrianne felt an enormous power engulf her body, and white armor appeared on her. A giant crossbow materialized in her hands, and another bow slung across her back. Her delicate white wings fluttered nervously when she raised the crossbow. 

"Let's dance."

*********************************

Miranda's eyes fluttered open as she saw a hole in her containment unit. Using the power of the White Silver Dragon, she managed to crack open a big enough hole for her to fit through. Stepping out, she saw Dart and Albert through the glass, and tried to free them too. 

"Ugh," Albert said as he stepped out. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," Dart said, grabbing his sword. "But I intend to find out."

The small group ran down many corridors and many hallways looking for the exit, but found only dead ends. 

"Man, why can't we get out of here?" Dart asked no one in particular. Through the walls, he heard someone yell "DIAMOND DUST!"

'Meru,' he thought. The three companions rushed over to the wall. They then called on their respective dragons.

"RED EYE DRAGON!"

"JADE DRAGON!"

"WHITE SILVER DRAGON!"

And with that, the three dragons appeared, but smaller than usual. Much smaller. And they could speak the language of Humans.

"What is going on?" The voice of the White Silver Dragon was much like Shana's own voice, soft and clear.

"I don't know," said a gruff voice said. "But I intend to find out." This voice was obviously the Red Eye Dragon.

"Well," said a slightly nerdy voice. "This is obviously a disruption in the cosmic order. The forces of good are divided. Our power is limited because there is more than one of each of our respective Dragoon powers here."

"So you're saying that there is another Red Eye Dragoon here?" said Dart.

"And another Jade Dragoon and another White Silver Dragoon," answered the smaller version of the Jade Dragon in his nerdy voice.  


"So," Dart said, resuming his natural role of leader. "Where are the others?"

"For all we know, they could be dead."

"Shana."

*********************************

"The second wave has begun," Meru said to no one in particular. "Come on, let's move!"

The evil soldiers this time looked bigger. Tougher. Harder to beat. They were more muscular. And there were more of them.

'Unfortunately,' Jake thought. 'There are more of them and less of us.'

They lost about fifty men in the last battle. 

"We must not hold back!" Meru yelled. "Hit them with everything we've got!"

************************************

A/N: Sorry this chapter was so short. I got pressed for time. I have three fics 2 update every weekend


	9. Chapter 9: Violet Dragoon

"Everyone, defense pattern omega!" Meru yelled as she swung her hammer forward, signaling the Dragoons to go forward into battle. "Quick battle guys," she continued. "Take 'um out."

"Right," Jake said. "Okay everyone, change back!" The Dragoons followed orders and changed back into Dragoon form. They had previously changed back to human form to conserve energy. 

"Divine Dragon Ball!" And once again, Jake took out almost half their ranks. Energy cannons from the turrets of Fort Magrad took out a good number of the rest of the soulless warriors. Greg, Meru, Ben, and Becca dispatched of the rest. 

"Good job," Meru said. "That didn't take too long. Rest up, we'll need our strength if they come back." 

******************************

Haschel awoke from his induced sleep. He rubbed his eyes and looked around. He was in a glass tube. There were three other broken ones around him. Releasing a punch at the glass, it shattered upon contact. He ran our of the room and towards the exit where he found his companions Miranda, Dart, and Albert and their three dragons.

"Just what is going on?" Haschel asked, confused. 

"I'd like to know that myself," replied Dart. 

Just then, Adrianne flew past them. "Oh," she said. "Hello." She was just about to fly away again when Miranda called back to her.

"Hey!" she called. Adrianne turned around. "The White Silver Dragoon." 

"My name's Adrianne," Adrianne replied. 

"Alright, Adrianne," Miranda said. "What the HELL are you doing with my Dragoon spirit!?" 

"It's my Dragoon spirit, and who the hell are you?" 

"Adrianne, Miranda," a voice said from behind them. "Miranda, Adrianne. You are both the White Silver Dragoon."

The five Dragoons turned around. The figure before them was Kryusa's underling, Emma. "But I'm afraid you've worn out your invitation. You need to leave. I'll show you the door." The Dragoons were lifted in the air and thrown out of a nearby window and straight into the battlefield below. 

*****************************************

Jim, Alex, and the Milton sisters stood in front of what appeared to be the house of Krissi Manion. Jim, always the impulsive one, entered first. 

"Should we follow him?" Kelly asked. 

"Why?" replied her sister. "All that house can hold is death. Why should we put our own lives at risk?"

Alex shrugged. "I don't know, Jim's intuition has been pretty good of late. Why would he be wrong again?"

"Well," Amber said. "Let's get in there." She followed Alex in while Kelly stood outside shaking her head. 

********************************************

Inside, Amber looked around and saw a grand chandelier hanging above their heads in the enormous foyer of the castle. Ornate designs were carved in the walls. Never before had she seen such unnecessary display of craftsmanship, but she had to admit it was gorgeous. 

"Wow," Jim said breathlessly. "It's beautiful." 

"I had it done myself," said a red-headed girl walking through the door. She extended her hand in Jim's direction. "Kate Mueller's the name, Slaying's the game. These days, however, I work for a slightly different boss." She snapped her fingers, raised her hand, and a low growl echoed in the back of the hallway. Kate's baby blue eyes glittered with sadness as she continued.

"I'm sorry I have to do this," she whispered softly. She brought her hand down, and a head of Gargantuan proportions appeared behind her. It had large, hair-like ridges on it's back. Crystalline, sapphire eyes glowed in the dim light coming from the candlelit chandelier. Two long fangs stuck out among a row of teeth as the beast advanced. One leg, at least the height of the ceiling (how it fit in there no one had any idea), nearly stepped on Jim. The other three legs came in succession. 

'If they can kill this thing,' Kate thought. 'I'll know that they are the one's I should help, not Eevano.' She disappeared into the shadows. 

The creature's back came out of the shadows. On top of it was a giant crystal, in which was suspended a young, blonde-haired girl. 

"Krissi!" Jim said. In her hands, Krissi held a purple jewel, and as Jim scrambled over to the beast and up it's right front leg, it began to glow.

***************************************

Adrianne soon righted herself from the fall she had taken. Still in the air, she looked at the other three Dragoons. Albert and Miranda were looking around, and Dart flew downwards and made a spectacular catch of Haschel in his arms. 

Touching down, the four Dragoons transformed back into human form. Unknowingly, they were right in Jake's view from Fort Magrad. 

Jake grabbed his Dragoon Spirit and flew out into the field. "Adrianne!" He called her name. She looked up and smiled.

"I thought I'd never see you again! I was afraid Doppleganger had killed you," she said as she ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. She planted a soft kiss on his lips. 

"Okay, now that we're all reunited again," Dart remarked. "Can we turn our attention to more pressing matters, like, oh, I don't know, the giant wave of monsters coming against us!"

"There's no-" Jake turned around to see a new onslaught of soulless creatures coming right for them.

****************************************

Jim climbed up on top of the creature, and looked at the crystal that Krissi was suspended in. Never before had he seen something so beautiful, and yet terrible at the same time. Krissi's sad, blue eyes were closed. She looked so helpless, floating there, frozen in a crystalline object on the back of a giant behemoth. Looking back down, he saw Amber and Alex dodging another stomp. 

"Krissi," Jim said. "Krissi, are you there? Can you hear me? Are you in there?" Her eyes said everything her words could not. He could tell she desperately needed to escape. Jim started hitting the structure with his balled up fists until they started to hurt. 

'I need to find a new tactic,' Jim thought. There was a purple gem sitting at Krissi's feet. He picked it up. He was drawn to it, it seemed to call out his name. He clenched the jewel in his fist and felt the power of a Dragoon flow through him. 

'Nice,' Kate thought, watching from afar. 'He can harness the power of the Violet Dragoon. Let's watch what happens next.'

Jim felt the armor cover his body. His crystalline wings opened and he took flight into the air. 

"Atomic Mind!"

Thunder crashed around the crystal holding Krissi's body, and it shattered. She fell unconscious onto the creature's back. 

'Phew,' Jim thought, and flew down to take her in his arms and carry her to safety. Narrowly avoiding a swipe of the creature's claws and coming out with a slash on his arm, he set her down next to Alex. 

"Keep her safe," he said to Alex. But when he turned around, Kate was standing in front of the beast.

"Kill it," she said. "Kill it now." Jim nodded and flew up higher into the air. Concentrating all of his electrical energy on one punch, he brought his hand back and used the force of his flight to pile drive his enemy. Electrical energy surged through the creatures body. The barbequed beast fell to the ground with one last cry. 

"Nice," Kate said. "You're almost worthy of my help."

"So who are you exactly Kate?" Jim asked, descending for a clean landing. 

"Some call me the Slayer. Basically what I do is kill evil, yucky slimy things. I came here when I was told by a very good friend told me that a great evil power was rising here. I thought that the Dragoons were the evil power, but that turned out to be not true."

"Well, that's the understatement of the year," Jim said. "Who deluded you into thinking that."

"Well," Kate said. "Her." Kate pointed to Krissi's unconscious form. "But I'm assuming that she's changed a little if a Dragoon would risk his life to free her at the expense of his own safety. Or the Dragoons have changed a little."

"The Dragoons have not changed one bit," a voice echoed from the doorway. "It's you who've changed Kate."

"Master," Kate said, turning. "I didn't know you'd be here so soon. I was just softening up these prisoners for you to finish them off."

"Is that so?" Eevano said. "I thought you said you would join them. If they beat the bad monster that is." He grabbed her by the hair.

"Hey!" Amber screamed, snapping out of her silence. "Let her go!" 

"And what are you going to do about it? Hmmm?"

"This." Amber put her fingers to her head, and concentrated on Eevano moving through the air. It happened.

"Woah," Alex said. "Amber, you're a-"

"A telepath," Amber finished. "It's a trait that runs in the women of my family. Now let's get out of here." She lifted a metal bar with her mind and started to wind it around Eevano, when she fell to the ground from exhaustion. Alex picked her up and carried her out of the mansion with Kate and Jim trailing behind. 


	10. Chapter 10: The Pieces Fall Apart

Kelly watched Jim, Kate, and Alex run out of the building, with Amber and Krissi in their arms.

"Okay, does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on? Krissi and my sister are unconscious, James is wearing fruity armor, and who the hell is the red head? Hey! Don't run away from me!" she said as they started to run from the house. She followed them, and just as she caught up to them, the house exploded in a burst of flames and all four people standing were knocked to the ground, Krissi and Amber tumbling from their grasp.

Jake rolled his eyes as he and Adrianne took flight.

"Star Children!" Adrianne yelled, and the holy power of Heaven came crashing down on the dark-based warriors and devastated their ranks. Jake was out of power, so he swung his sword around. The original Dragoons helped too, but destroying a lot of the rest with their magic didn't stop the warriors from coming.

"This isn't working," Meru said. "Dart, and Lloyd, come with me, we're going to shut down that portal that's bringing them in."

"You've really grown up Meru," Dart said to her.

"Thanks," Meru said. "Now let's get moving."

The two leaders, after restoring Jake's magic, followed Meru to an area around the place where there was a small portal which the warriors where coming from.

"Wait Meru," Dart said to Meru. "If we knew where it was, why didn't anyone try to destroy it."

"People have tried," Meru said bluntly. Dart got silent. "But now," she continued. "We have you." Dart smiled.

"Red Eye Dragon!" The small dragon magically appeared. "Oh, right," Dart said. "Forgot about that."

"Let me try," Jake said. "I think I can do something." Jake charged up his cannon, and fired at the bottom of the portal. It collapsed with a crash. Energy flew from the wreckage in streams, and nearly hit the small Dragon.

"Hey! Watch it!" The Dragon flew away. The Dragoons did too. The ensuing surge from the energy knocked down everyone on the battlefield, including Adrianne and the other Dragoons remaining there.

"Adrianne!"

Eevano looked at the wreckage of Krissi's house. He scowled as he saw that Kate, Alex, Jim, Krissi, Amber, and Kelly were still alive.

"Poor brother," Kryusa's voice floated from behind him. Eevano turned around. "Can't even kill a bunch of teenagers."

"As I recall, your attempt to fool the girl into helping you was a failure. And she's the weakest. The healer. At least I lost to a telepath, a Slayer, and the Violet Dragoon."

Kryusa frowned. "At least she was the only Dragoon who slipped through my fingers," she continued.

"You lost the four Old Dragoons," Eevano said. "At least I only lost the girl."

"Before I even started to take over that operation, you had already failed miserably many, many other times," Kryusa argued. "More than I."

Eevano was silent for a moment. "Shut up!"

"You're like a child Eevano," she said. "Always the baby of the family. You never were good at anything, were you brother? Never amount to-"

Eevano let out a piercing scream, and his true form, his true spirit, erupted from his host's mouth and faced Kryusa.

"Do not trifle with me, fool of a sister!" the spirit said in the true booming voice of Eevano. "I am more powerful than you by far. Try to defy me. TRY!"

"Your penchant for smoke and mirrors never ceases to amaze me brother," Kryusa said. "You are not the only one with a more powerful form."

And her true spirit arose.

Jake sat up. He was in a totally white area. There seemed to be no walls or ceiling, but then again, there didn't seem to be a floor either, and he wasn't falling. Disoriented, he got to his feet, and his head exploded with pain. His memory flashed back to what just happened. The blinding light, the destroyed portal. The screams of his friends. His mind wandering, he felt around for his Dragoon Spirit, but found it nowhere.

"Jake," a voice came from behind him. He whirled around, and saw seven people sitting behind a large, invisible desk that seemed to wind in a half circle. Three men and four women, arranged with the men in every other seat.

"What the hell did you do with my friends!?" Jake threatened.

"You're in no position to threaten us, Void Dragoon," a red-headed woman in the center said. "My name is Ophelia, and you must believe me when I say we have no intention of hurting you or Adrianne or any of the other Dragoons. We only want-"

"Who the hell are you, and what the hell am I doing here?"

"Please," the man sitting next to her said. "You will be able to see them soon. But we need to question you first."

"What happened to them? What happened to Adrianne?"

"She will be fine," the woman called Ophelia said. "What we need to know is-"

"I don't care," Jake cut her off. "Show me Adrianne, or else you get nothing out of me."

Ophelia dropped her head. "Is this wise? Do you think it is wise to see her now?" She brought her head back up and stood. "After you nearly killed her by incinerating Endiness?"

Kate, Jim, Alex, and Kelly stood again. The impact of the blast had knocked them to the ground, and they were a bit shaken. They looked back at the rubble, and saw the two spirits of Eevano and Kryusa fighting.

"Aw crap," Kate said. "Grab Krissi and Amber and run while they're distracted. We can get to safety."

The two fighting spirits noticed the humans running away.

"Emma!"

"Orinas!"

They both yelled for their servants. Orinas and Emma swooped down out of the sky. Emma landed gracefully, while Orinas fell on his back.

"Ow, pain," Orinas whined, showing them a cut on his arm. "But you know what they say, blood will have blood." The cut, still bleeding heavily, suddenly stopped bleeding. Then the blood sucked itself back into the wound, and the laceration mysteriously disappeared.

"Self-healing is a nice ability to have," Orinas smirked. "It keeps me young."

"Stop being an idiot Orinas," Emma snapped. "Let's just kill them and get it over with."

Orinas shrugged. "You're the boss. No, wait, you're not."

"Just kill them," Emma whined, but then she saw Amber, unconscious. "Who is that girl? Is she one of the Milton twins?"

"What if she is?" Kelly asked.

"Then I have an obligation to her mother to protect her," Emma said. "I'll leave the sisters alone, but I'm afraid I must kill the Dragoon."

"Why?" Jim asked. "What the hell did we ever do to you?"

Emma shrugged. "Orders."

"Wait, wait," Kelly said. "It's got to be more than orders."

"Well, maybe orders and a highly powerful spell Eevano cast on me," Emma replied. "That bastard. I wish he had never been born."

"I'll help you break it," Kelly said, putting her hands on the sides of Emma's face. "Let me in." Kelly and Emma stood perfectly still.

Kelly broke her contact. "There," she said. "The spell is broken. You should be fine now."

"Thanks," Emma said. "And don't ever probe around my head that long again. You were touching on a few gray areas there."

"I couldn't find the spell! I'm still learning!"

"Great," Kate said. "Thank god we're all acquainted. Now can we kill something?"

All eyes turned to Orinas. He smiled nervously.

"Can't we just work this out?"

"What do you mean? The blast from the portal was powerful, sure, but not powerful enough to destroy an entire world," Jake continued.

"No of course not," the woman in white, she said her name was Ophelia, replied. "The ensuing blast only liquefied Fort Magrad. We were only able to save some of you by strenuous means."

"Wait," Jake said. "Some of you? Who'd you leave behind?"

"Well, most of the Endiness Dragoons," Ophelia continued. "We saved Meru, Dart, and the Moon Child."

"What about my friends," Jake said "What about Adrianne?"

"I saved them all, and we spared no expense," Ophelia finished. "But I don't think you understand the severity of what you've done by destroying that portal. It enveloped the planet, and opened the entire world to that demon dimension. It's swarming with soulless beings now. Nothing is left." She stood up.

"What?" Jake was in shock. "No, no, that can't be true."

"It is," the white robed man said. "You did something very wrong. You killed a world."

"No," Jake said, not wanting to believe it.

"Yes," a new robed woman said. "And never to exist again."

Ben woke up and he was completely surrounded by white. He felt around for his Dragoon Spirit, but it was nowhere to be found.

"That's odd," he thought out loud. "I definitely had it with me. Maybe it got stolen."

"It didn't get stolen," said a woman's voice from behind him. "I have it, but I'm kinda not supposed to give it to you, 'cuz you kinda lost it when you almost died there for a sec."

"Almost what?" Ben turned around. He saw a blonde girl of about his age, and she was dressed in white robes. She had deep green eyes with small yellow flecks in them.

"Woops," the girl said. "You didn't hear that."

"Hear what?" Ben asked.

"Exactly," the blonde girl said. "So, which one are you?" she moved in on him.

"Which one what?"

"I guess you're the fire one. All that," she touched his chest. "Fiery personality. You must be the leader."

"Well, I should be," Ben said. "I mean, I was the original Dragoon. Before Jake, I was the one who saved all those people."

"And set a good number of buildings on fire while doing it. You caused $54,784.30 in damage doing it."

"Wow," Ben remarked. "How… accurate."

"Well," she said walking quickly over to her "desk", everything was complete white so he couldn't tell what anything was. "It was nice to meet you."

"You can't stay?"

"No, I have other work to attend to. Other guests to work with," she said, gathering a few clipboards from behind the desk. "I will see you later Ben."

"Wait," Ben said as she started to leave. She turned around. "Other guests?"

"Yeah," the girl said, smiling. "We have your friends in rooms adjacent to yours." She stopped. "Woops, shouldn't have said that."

"Said what?"

"Exactly," the girl replied. "You know, say what you want about gypsies, their magic comes through in a pinch."

Ben raised an eyebrow. "Okay, but there's something I've been meaning to ask you ever since I woke up," he said. "Where am I? What the hell is this place? And where are my friends?"

"All in good time," the girl said.

"Well," Ben continued. "Will you at least give me your name?"

"Kylie," she said. "My name is Kylie. Now you get back to sleep and I'll bring your friends to you soon enough."

Ben sat back down on the floor, or what he guessed must have to be the floor, and thought about this.

Adrianne looked around at the familiar surroundings of Eevano's castle.

'I can't believe I always end up here after meeting with a Dragoon,' she thought spitefully. 'I mean it's not like I'm associated with them anymore. Yeah sure, I'm a Dragoon myself, but I just joined the team. I'm a newbie. What does Eevano want with me?'

"I came to see you myself my dear," Eevano's voice drifted from behind her.

"I'm not speaking to you," Adrianne said without turning around. "Not until you tell me what the hell you want with me!? Why keep kidnapping me?"

"It's so easy," Eevano said. "And I'm still in love with you."

"Let Evan go," Adrianne said. "I know he's in there. He's spoken to me. I heard him."

"My host still loves you," Eevano said. "You know I'm a spirit, in your words, a parasite, living off of another living being to sustain myself. But I prefer to see myself as an opportunist. I see myself as a god who uses my host as a, well, a host to house my great spirit. This body will expire in a few days. My power is too much for it to handle."

"What?" Adrianne asked. "What are you saying?"

"Evan's going to die, and you will be my new host." Eevano opened his mouth and his spirit came out. But then blood started to drip from his lips, and he looked down and saw the Greatsword, the double-edged sword which can heal and destroy in one swipe, sticking out of his chest. Evan screamed, and the escaped spirit of Eevano laughed.

Evan croaked and fell to the ground.

"Oh my god!" Adrianne heard Kate yell. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I only meant to kill-"

"I know what you meant," Adrianne said as she held up her spirit. She pulled the Greatsword out of his chest. He gave a slight grunt and collapsed onto the floor.

"Here," she said, and her Dragoon Spirit began to glow. "This'll make you feel better. I promise." There were tears in her eyes.

The wound refused to heal. Tears in her eyes, Adrianne changed into a Dragoon, drew her crossbow, and aimed it for Evan.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and fired her crossbow.

"Thank you," he said.

"Don't mention it," she choked out through her tears. "Hey, if you see anybody we know on the other side, say hi for me."

"I will," Evan said smiling. "Listen Adrianne, don't dwell on the past. It's over and done with."

"Are you asking me to forget you?" she said. "No, please, I can't bear to lose you again."

"You have to," he said. "Your place is here, with the Dragoons. Obviously I don't belong here with you. Don't forget the past, but don't let it stand in the way of your future."

"With Jake?"

Evan smiled. "If you want."

They both smiled. Then Evan's eyes closed, and he slipped away.

"Goodbye," Adrianne whispered, barely audible.

"I understand," Jake said. "But I still need to know-"

"It's the girl," a female voice interrupted.

"Who?"

"Adrianne," she continued. "By the way, Jake, my name is Kylie."

"Oh," Jake said. He knew he'd heard that name somewhere before.

"The girl escaped?" Ophelia asked. "How is this possible? Was it-"

"It was."

"Eevano."

"Eevano!?" Jake turned around to face Kylie. "I'll take care of him. I've beaten him before, and I'll beat him again."

"It's not that simple," Ophelia said. "His soul has separated from his host. And I think the host is dead."

"That's terrible," said Kylie. "Well, I might as well show you where it is."

"She's a little odd," Jake said. "Has she always been like this?"

"Of course," Ophelia said. "But then again, you should know. I mean, you two were very close."

"What?" Jake said. "I've never seen her in my life."

"It will all become clear soon." Ophelia remarked, standing. "Now, if you'll excuse us, the Council of Light has other business."

She snapped her fingers, and everything disappeared. Jake, Kylie, Ben, Greg, and Becca were lying on the ground near Krissi Manion's house. Emma, Jim, Alex, Kelly, Krissi, and Amber, the last two finally awake, gave them an odd look.

"What are they doing here?" Amber said to her sister.

"We might ask you the same thing," Kylie said, advancing on Amber. "Who are you? What is your business here?"

"I followed Jim," she said. "Back off, Psychopath Barbie."

"Who's Barbie?" Kylie asked.

"You really were deprived as a girl, weren't you?" Amber asked.

"Probably," she said. "But then again, my childhood memories and the childhood memories of my friends were all removed when I became a servant of the Council."

"The who?" Amber asked

"The Council of Light is the great malevolent force behind all the world's workings."

"Uh, don't you mean benevolent?" Jake asked.

"Interrupting me is not high on the list of things I won't kick your ass for," Kylie chided. "Now, as I was saying before I was so RUDELY interrupted…

"The Council of Light is a benevolent panel of otherworldly beings that watches over the forces of good and keeps evil in check. It's their job to choose the Dragoons, and they're not done yet."

"There are more Dragoons?" Jake questioned.

"WILL YOU STOP INTERRUPTING ME!?" Kylie exploded, turning towards Jake. Jake shrunk back. She faced the others again. "Now, as I was saying before I was so RUDELY interrupted…

"You sill have not met all the Dragoons. You know Meru, right? She's the Dragoon of Water. Blue Sea Dragoon. Do you know any of your friends that have that power? Didn't think so. And she's not the only one. The others are-"

Suddenly an explosion came from deep within the castle.

"Mount up guys," Jake said. "We've got a bad guy to kill."

"But doesn't anyone want to hear about the rest of the-"

"No time," Jake said. "You're welcome to tag along if you want."

Kylie followed behind Emma, Alex, Amber, and Kelly, mumbling something about not being excluded because she was a member of the Council. The Dragoons transformed and picked up a member of the non-Dragoons. Jake linked his arms under Kylie's arms, Greg picked up Alex, Becca picked up Kelly, Ben picked up Amber, and Emma used her psychic powers to float up alongside them. She carried Krissi with her.

Adrianne held back her tears and faced the true Eevano.

"You killed him."

"Not at all," Eevano said. "It was your friend, Kate."

In all the commotion, Adrianne had forgotten Kate was there. She turned towards her and shot her a look.

"I'm sorry, but it had to be done," Kate said. "He was the host. The host of a very powerful and very dangerous demon spirit."

"Come now," Eevano said. His voice sounded like a pearl fell out, and then consequently shattered on the floor. "Demon is such a derogatory term. It has all that Buffy reference clinging to it."

"Buffy wasn't a demon," Adrianne argued.

"Well, actually-"

"Kate, shut up," Adrianne continued. "Just help me kill this goddamn spirit demon ghost thing."

Kate drew her two swords, and the spirit lunged at her. Her sword ghosted through him, and he turned back around. He floated over to Evan's body, and entered back through his mouth. Evan stood up, smirked, and pulled the crossbow bolt out of his chest. He looked down, and his smirk disappeared. He was wearing the Cursed Armor.

"Thank you Kate," Adrianne said. "If you hadn't distracted him I wouldn't have had time to refit Evan's body with the Armor. It's a sacrifice, to lose Evan, but it may have been necessary for the good of the whole."

"We can bring him back," Kate said. "I mean, Emma has the Necklace."

"Right," Emma said. The rest of the group had appeared.

"Great," Eevano said. "Well, I might as well do one last thing." He pulled out a receiver with a large red button on it.

"When I press this button, it will blow up this house and destroy the whole city."

Eevano nodded. "That's right. When I press this button, the magical energy in the generator will implode and break it's container, level this building, and eventually liquefy the city."

Kate rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about it. He's not man enough to do it."

"Am I?" Eevano said. "I'll press it. And I'll do it now-"

Krissi tackled him to the ground. "How dare you? I should suck the life out of you right now. Actually, that's not a bad idea." He opened his mouth wide and started to suck the air around him into his mouth.

"Krissi!" Jim yelled. Krissi started to turn into dust.

"Don't worry about me!" she yelled, fending him off, but turning to dust anyway. "Just get the controller."

"Uh," Adrianne said. "I think it might be too late."

The walls fell apart to reveal a giant metal machine that took up the entire left half of the house. It sizzled with purple lightning. Like Jim's.

"No," Jim said simply. "You all stay here. I got this." Jim flew up towards it.

"Jim don't," Becca said, sensing his plan. "Don't go through with this. There has to be another way. A way where I won't lose you."

Jim smiled weakly. "No worries." He flew up to the generator, and ripped a wire free. He pulsed his power through it, and made it surge with power.

"Let's get out of here," Jake said. "We can't change Jim's mind. Only he can make that decision."

"No," Becca said. "I'm going to stay and try to convince him."

"No," Jake said, and then was silent for a while. "I'll stay. As far as we know, I'm the strongest, so I have the best chance of getting him out of here alive."

Becca just stared at him, like she had something to say, but she kept her mouth shut.

"Change back," Jake ordered. "If neither of us come out alive, Ben's in charge. He's still in charge in my absence." He looked at Ben.

"Get them out of here," he said bluntly. Then he changed into a Dragoon and flew up to the generator.

Jim held onto the generator with all his might, and surged his electricity through it. Eevano, still in Evan's body, tried to distract him.

"Why do you do it?" Eevano asked. "Why sacrifice yourself to save the world?"

"How do you know I'm going to die from this?"

"Come on," Eevano continued. "There's enough electricity in this generator to liquefy the entire city. Just because you're a Dragoon doesn't mean you're immortal. How do you think the other Dragoons got their powers? The Endiness Dragoons died. How do you think they got their powers? The Dragon Campaign Dragoons died. Well, most of them did anyway."

"You might as well give up," Jake said, and Eevano turned around. "Even if Jim fails, I still have enough power to wipe the floor with you and your generator."

"Oh, you're just full of wonderful ideas and rousing speeches today, aren't you?" Eevano said jokingly. "Let me ask you this: Why you? Why not let Becca stay instead?"

"Truth is," Jake said. "I'm sorry Jim, but I don't give a rat's ass about that generator. We both know that you're a dead man, and that's why you didn't want her around. That's why I don't want her around. She would never recover. And we need as many Dragoons as we can get for the Final Battle. Which this is not, by the way. This may be hard, but it's not the be-all end-all."

"And how do you know?"

"I just do," Jake said simply. "I just feel it. Deep in my bones type deal."

"Well, I don't care," Eevano said. "I'll just make sure you're not around to find out." He lifted his fist and punched him in the stomach. Jake took the blow hard and flew against the wall. His wings hit the wall first, and snapped off with a sickening crack as his back connected a split second later. He fell face first onto the floor. Jake got up and ran back at him, sword drawn. He swung hard at Eevano's chest, but as the blade connected, it bounced off and began to quiver. A sickly sound of metal hitting metal reverberated throughout the room.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot," Eevano said. "I'm kind of invincible."

"But, don't worry," Eevano said. "It'll all be over soon."

"Damn right," Jim said. "It'll all end now." He held up his palm. It was sizzling with the same purple electricity from the generator.

"Sucked it dry," he continued. "While you two were fighting. Unfortunately, it's a bit unstable, so Jake, tell Becca I love her."

"I will," Jake said. "Do what you have to man."

Jim smiled. Electricity erupted from every facet of his body and took down the entire structure with a deafening crash.

A/N: NO WAIT! DON'T GO YET! I still have to write the epilogue. This book is obviously not going to have a happy ending, so all who were rooting for one can pretty much give up. As many loose ends will be tied up in the epilogue if I can.


	11. Epilogue

"He still hasn't woken up yet?" Amber asked, and Adrianne shook her head. The two of them were in the Intensive Care Unit looking after Jake, whom the two of them found unconscious in the rubble of Krissi's house. There was no sign of Jim or Evan. Adrianne hadn't said much since.

Amber was starting to worry about her. Adrianne hadn't spoken since that incident at Krissi's house, and that was two weeks ago.

'Well,' Amber thought. 'Nothing more than a 'hi' or a 'yeah', and she hasn't eaten at all or slept much either. She just sits by Jake's hospital bed and doesn't move or say a word or hardly blink.'

"Adrianne, say something," Amber said. "I hate seeing you like this. It's nearly unbearable. I mean I know we're not close or anything, 'cuz you just moved here and you're all new and everything, but I feel like we've really made a connection in the short time we've known each other."

"For the whole three weeks I was at this school, I only started talking to you this week."

"Yeah that's all very interesting and everything," Kylie said walking in the room. Adrianne and Amber looked towards her. "The Council has a mission for the Dragoons. They want you to retrieve the rest of the Dragoon Spirits."

"Uh, Kylie?" Adrianne spoke up. "Amber doesn't know about the Dragoons."

"Oh," Kylie said, looking sheepish. "Well, she does now. And she's gonna help us get them. Her and her sister, and that nice homicidal red-head, the crazy psychic lady, the other kinda porky guy that doesn't really say much, and the other guy from the future-"

"What guy from the future?"

"She means me," a voice said from the back. It was Lavitz. "My Adrianne, the White Silver Dragoon on our side in that time, sent me back to fix what we screwed up. First, I let Jimbo die. Then I let Greg die. Then I let Ben die. Then, as Adrianne was dying, she sent me back to fix what I had done, to warn myself of the mistakes I'd make." There was a long pause as everyone in the room thought it over.

"Wow, tension," Kylie said. "Anyway, we have to find-"

Ben and Greg walked in with a giant red "Get Well" balloon with a teddy bear in bandages and with a little thermometer in it's mouth for Jake and Chinese takeout for Adrianne.

"Hey," Greg said, putting his arms around Amber's waist. "What'd we miss?"

"You two are so cute together," Adrianne said. "I'm so happy you two crazy kids finally hooked up."

"It was all me," Alex said, walking in the room. "I caught them making out and forced them to go public."

"How long had this been going on before you did finally go public?" Adrianne said accusingly.

"Only two months," Amber said, and decided to change the subject. "So how is he?"

"Still comatose," Adrianne said, frowning. "He doesn't exactly get better."

"Of course he wouldn't," Kylie said. "His spirit is-"

"Hey guys," Emma said walking into the room. Kate was with her.

"We come bearing nourishment," Kate said, pulling out a pile of tinfoil, presumably food for Adrianne.

"I already got food," Adrianne said softly.

"Oh it's not food," Kate said. "And it's not for you. It's for Jake. I have a few contacts in Los Angeles and, well, Sunnydale."

"You've been to Sunnydale?" Amber said in surprise.

"Well, of course," Kate said. "It's my alma mater. Who do you think protected the Hellmouth before-?"

"So, it's true," Lavitz said. "We have a Slayer in our midst. I was told that Eevano had a Slayer working for him, but-"

"It was a trick," Kate said. "I promise. He told me he had one of my friends. And when did you get here?"

"I came in while the loud blonde girl was speaking. I've been here."

"I am not loud!" Kylie yelled, loudly. "I wish you all would just let me finish a damn sentence-"

"Lookie, lookie what I found," Kelly remarked, walking in the door. She held up the Violet Dragoon Spirit. "It was in the rubble of Krissi's old house."

"Don't talk about Krissi," Lavitz said. "You have no right, you didn't know her. You didn't know a thing about her. I knew her. I loved her."

"Uh, what's going on?" Amber asked.

"I think, and this is a shot in the dark here," Kylie said. "I think that Jim may be channeling his spirit, his life force, his chi, through the next host for the Violet Dragoon? Maybe, maybe Lavitz is the next Violet Dragoon."

"Only one way to find out," Lavitz said as he picked up the Dragoon Spirit from Kelly's hand. It glowed a bright purple.

"Well, it looks like Dragoon Spirits can choose new hosts," Kylie said. "I'll hafta report back to the Council eventually. I mean, it's been like two weeks since we last spoke. Nothing exciting has been going on since then. Well, except for this."

"Hey, where'd Lavitz go?" Amber asked.

"Who cares?" Ben said flatly. "We'd best get out of here."

"I'm staying," Adrianne said. "Someone has to be here."

"That's why God made nurses," Amber said. "You're going home, and you're getting some rest."

"I can sleep here," Adrianne said. "Please. I spoke to him once, and he almost woke up. Please. Don't make me leave him."

"Oh grow the hell up," Kate said. "How trite and overused is that? 'Don't make me leave him,'" she mocked. "This does not show strength, it simply shows stubbornness."

"Which is a bad quality why?" Adrianne asked.

"Because this is moronic," Kate continued. "Kryusa is still out there, and she'll be looking for revenge for her brother."

"I'll stay with her," Emma said. "From time to time. For a few hours. And I'll let her know if any trouble comes up. Telepathically."

Kate still looked discordant, but kept her mouth shut. "Fine," she said, slightly defeated. "But you do need to go home at least once."

"You're probably right," Adrianne said. "Okay, I'll go home sometime tonight."

They all left the hospital, some in a better mood than others. Some about ready to beat the crap out of others.

"Did you bring it Orinas?"

"Yes Mistress," Orinas replied. "The Gem of Vormav. King of Vampires. It can bring a vampire across space and time."

"Good," Kryusa said, holding the small bauble between her fingers. It glowed a brilliant red, the color of fresh blood. The ruby-like gem was set in a circular half disk made of pure gold, and ornately decorated with all sorts of magical symbols. A gold chain erupted from the top. She smiled.

"So what vampire are you planning on bringing over here?" Orinas asked. "Vormav? The Master? Angelus?"

"Even better," Kryusa said. She held up the necklace "Gubreme Irenme Chienenme, Gubreme Irenme Chienenme, Gubreme Irenme Chienenme."

She continued to chant, and the glow of the gem enhanced into a fire inside the crystal. The fire spilled out onto the floor. Orinas jumped off the ground and onto the platform Kryusa's throne was located on. A hand reached up from the fire, and slammed down on the floor. It pulled up a leather-clad figure with red hair. She inhaled sharply and pulled herself out of the fire pit.

"Where am I?" the figure asked. "This world is so boring. Can I go back?"

"Oh, I don't think you'll find this world boring," Kryusa said. "Tell you what, you can go out and hunt and I'll give you a mission later."

"So I can go out and play?" she asked.

"All night," Kryusa said. "But come back before sundown. I know how deadly sunlight is to you vampires."

The girl cracked a wicked smile. "I'll go out and play, and be back soon."

A/N: Obviously, this is not the end for the Dragoons. There will be a Quest of the Dragoons book Two. Many of the loose ends from this book will be tied up, such as what happened to Jim and Evan? Who's that red-headed vampire? And what does Kryusa have in mind for her? Why is Orinas working for Kryusa? What will happen to Jake? What deep, dark secrets lie in Kate's past? What is Kylie's involvement in the storyline? Who are the other Dragoons Kylie spoke of? What will happen to the fledgling relationships between the characters? And will Adrianne ever stop being such a pansy?

WARNING: THE NEXT BOOK WILL CONTAIN MORE ADULT CONTENT THAN THIS ONE. EXPECT EXPLICIT VIOLENCE AND GORE, STRONG LANGUAGE, POSSIBLE SEXUAL DIALOGUE, AND ADULT CONTENT.


End file.
